Seeker's Journey
by Corvus
Summary: Myst/Amber crossover. Atrus and a young Amberite named Raven undertake a quest to recover a powerful artifact.
1. Seeker's Journey -- Prologue

"Seeker's Journey"  
by Corvus  
  
-- Prologue --  
  
Sunlight poured down upon the tranquil isle, playing across the rooftops, dappling under the trees, dancing across the waves that lapped the shores. Gulls shrieked their songs to each other, the sound piercing through the rising and falling rush of the ocean. A faint hint of salt tang wafted on the breeze, mingling with the freshness of leaf and grass. This place was unspoiled, even in the wake of a betrayal years ago. The spirit of its creator would have smiled.  
  
Two men occupied the island this day. The first, sitting cross-legged and leaning his elbows on the table, was in his middle years, spectacles decorating a visage that had seen the sun of countless worlds. Short brown hair sprinkled with a hint of gray topped his round face, and a carefully-trimmed beard and mustache framed his lips. He dressed as an explorer would, simple and rugged pants, shirt and boots, but with a splash of color on the woven vest he wore over the tunic. His solid hands held decorative cards, the components of the game he had introduced to the man sitting on the other side of the low wooden table they had placed on the grass.  
  
That man looked young and vibrant, perhaps half the age of the explorer. He was handsome, beyond a doubt, and some women had called him beautiful in the past; hair black as a raven's wing hung down in curling waves to his shoulders, and ice-blue eyes stared out over an elegant nose and sensuous lips. His clothes were casual -- black slacks, white button-down shirt open the first two buttons to let the breeze caress his chest, and well-polished black shoes on his feet. He lounged on the grass, cards folded in one hand. He found the game quite entertaining, though the explorer had trounced him in the first three hands.  
  
It was a routine they had adopted since they had first met, quite by accident, five years before. Since that time they had become fast friends and shared their knowledge with each other. The young man and the elder would meet in this place, and the explorer would teach the other some new game, song or story he had learned, and then attentively learn a new secret from his friend. This card game was merely the latest of their exchanges.  
  
The explorer considered the cards he held. Of the seven cards, five of them were bordered "common" cards that made up the bulk of the playing deck. Each of them bore the design of a season down the left side, and one of the four Elements -- Earth, Air, Fire and Water -- across the top. Season and Element combined to label the card with one of the twelve months of the year in which the game had been created. The body of each common card was one of four landscapes, either Ocean, Desert, Mountain or Sky. These attributes were combined in various ways with those of other cards to score "tricks" worth various points.  
  
The other two cards were quite different. These special cards, known as Phenomena, depicted various astronomical or weather occurances. When played in conjunction with common cards in tricks, they modified the value of that trick.  
  
The point of the game was simple -- score the most points. Emptying your hand was worth points in and of itself, but it would bring the round to a close. Balance and strategy were the keys. Should he attempt to empty his hand early and prevent his friend from scoring more tricks, or should he attempt to build more tricks and overwhem the other man? Twice he had bided his time and built a solid point base while letting his friend feel his way through the game, but in the previous hand, when the other man had made a surprisingly strong showing, he had ended the round as fast as he could. Now they had begun a fourth round, and he had a feeling he was going to lose this one.  
  
"Raven," he said to the other man, "there's something I need to discuss with you."  
  
Across the table the man named Raven frowned slightly, lips pursing. "I figured, Atrus. You've seemed a bit distracted all morning."  
  
Atrus, for that was the explorer's name, chuckled briefly. He had thought he was hiding his inner doubts well. Anyone else who knew him would have missed the apprehension he was suppressing. Anyone but Raven. The other man's perception never ceased to amaze him. "I need the assistance of someone with your particular... talents." His brown eyes lifted from the cards he held to consider Raven. In truth, the man he studied was the elder of them both, easily four times Atrus' age. Raven's people did not age nearly as rapidly as either the D'ni or humans. The man was something quite different. "I'd like you to go with me when I return to Misara."  
  
A look of consideration crossed Raven's features. The promise of adventure lifed the frown from his lips, and they curled upward slowly. "When do we leave?"  
  
"You don't want to hear the details first?"  
  
Raven waved his free hand dismissively. "I figure you'll tell me what I need to know when I need to know it. You always do."  
  
"I knew I could count on you." Atrus sighed with relief. That burden lifted he chose three of his cards, all decorated with the mountain landscape, and placed them on the table. Then he took note of his score, placed the remaining cards in his hand on the table and stood to stretch. "Catherine will be upset that I didn't ask her, but she's already got enough tasks... and this could be somewhat... dangerous."  
  
If something was somewhat dangerous to the D'ni-human man standing there in the sun, it would be a moment's distraction for one such as himself, Raven thought. Unless Atrus was understating the problem -- which he had been known to do before. "Dangerous like your father, or dangerous like our last excursion?" While Gehn had posed a threat to multiple worlds, he had been defeated by a human who had aided Atrus at least twice. Defeating the master of the Labyrinth had taken a bit more... force. "I broke a sweat last time."  
  
The explorer laughed. "I don't think it'll be quite that exciting." His friend could be arrogant, yes, but Atrus knew he was simply making an understatement of his own. Both men had suffered quite a bit in their quest to defeat the sorcerous overlord of the Labyrinth. "As you know, the Misarans are quite fond of festivals and ritual. For some time now there's been a growing unease in their society about the upcoming turn of the millennium according to their calendar. There's a ritual set down in their holy texts, but an object required for the ritual has apparently been sealed away under powerful magical guards, and no one can get to it. The Misarans turned to me, and I couldn't deny them my help, since they've been so good to me. But after careful examination of the problem... I realize I'm in over my head."  
  
Raven laid the cards in his hand on the table face-up, one at a time, and didn't stop until all seven were down. "Four of a kind, with rain, lightning and tornado. Ten thousand points." Atrus' eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't thought it was possible to achieve that hand at all, let alone have it dealt out. "I went to Castle Amber after we left the Labyrinth," Raven went on. "I had to re-walk the Pattern after what that sorceror did to me, and I didn't want my mother fretting all over me. Good thing King Random decided to keep his mouth shut -- with a hefty gesture of goodwill from me, naturally. Anyway, to sum things up, I walked the Pattern again, I'm back to one hundred percent, and I'm with you all the way. I could use some fun."  
  
"Then we can leave right away. Um... you win, by the way."  
  
The Amberite flopped back on the grass and stared up at the flawless azure sky overhead. "What would you do if I told you I cheated?" 


	2. Seeker's Journey -- Part One

"Seeker's Journey"  
Part One  
by Corvus  
  
Raven thought it was a shame that as beautiful as Myst Island was, it was uninhabited most of the time. He stared at the painting of the island's geography that hung to the right of the door, waiting while Atrus dug a Linking Book out of his pack for them to make the crossing to Misara. Given a little direction from the D'ni, Raven could have simply shifted them through infinite Shadow, but it amused him to use his friend's method of transportation. And, he had to admit, it would be faster this way.  
  
Atrus gave a little grunt of satisfaction as he produced the dark red tome that would give them access to the Age of their quest. "Silly me, I packed it all the way on the bottom. Didn't want to take a chance of forgetting it."  
  
Raven gave Atrus a half-smile of acknowledgement and said, "Always the practical one." He turned from the map stepped over to where Atrus had set the Linking book on a lit display stand. Once, years ago, there had been a black scorch mark on this stand and on the one just like it on the opposite side of the room, but Raven had repaired the wood without inquiring as to the nature of the burns. Atrus had not commented then and had never explained since. "Any chance of a meal when we get there? I'm feeling peckish."  
  
The final gold-edged parchment page of the book bore an animated image that would transport them to the world called Misara when they placed their hands upon it. As Raven watched the view swooped down from a brilliant desert sky and raced through a mountain pass. Once out of the pass, it danced a circle around a tower perched precariously atop a cliff above a crashing blue-gray sea. He studied the featureless gray stone and noticed there were no windows, balconies or doors. The objective dropped over the cliff suddenly and dashed across the waves toward a misty island. Forest grew thick almost right to the water, leaving a thin ribbon of shore. A village of wood and stone structures lay in a clearing a quarter mile back from the sea. The view shot into the largest of the structures, turned and settled on a raised dais. Even as it did the pale face of a curious native appeared in the doorway. "Yes," replied Atrus finally, "I believe so." He shouldered his pack and pressed his hand to the image.  
  
Raven watched as his friend dissolved and his essence was drawn into the picture with a bizarre echoing hum. No matter how many times he saw the Linking process, it always disturbed him. "Next time we do it my way," he said, and touched the book.  
  
The first sensation Raven noticed was the damp cold, an instant before the blackness that had settled over his eyes lifted to reveal what looked to him to be a tavern built from a dark, sturdy timber. Thick rafters loomed overhead, the pale gray light filtering through the two windows and the open door failing to fully pierce the shadowy darkness beyond them. Several plain, solid tables were surrounded by equally plain and sturdy wooden chairs. Atrus was already speaking with the native that had appeared in the Linking Book image. Raven shivered and rubbed his arms. "You didn't tell me it was going to be this cold," he complained.  
  
"I'm so used to it I didn't give it much thought," said Atrus. "Pola, this is my friend Raven. He's agreed to help."  
  
"Another Seeker?" the native man asked, his large ghostly gray eyes widening even further. "But the prophecy..."  
  
"I don't know anything about prophecies," Raven quipped as he buttoned up his shirt. "Be back in a second, Atrus." The Amberite concentrated for a moment. A long-sleeved gray tunic with black, silver and sapphire blue trim and a matching cloak and belt. Yes, that would do. Calling upon the power of the Pattern, he took three long strides away from the dais and disappeared into Shadow.  
  
Pola whimpered in surprise. "Where... where did he go, Seeker Atrus?"  
  
"To fetch warmer clothing, I shouldn't wonder," the D'ni replied. "He'll be back in a moment. Never fear, he's a good man, he just has strange ways."  
  
"As you say, Seeker Atrus. I will inform the Council of your arrival." The Misaran covered his face with his hands and bowed, showing his implicit trust that Atrus would guide him faithfully toward the Higher World, then left.  
  
Raven reappeared without so much as a ripple in reality. He had decided to exchange his slacks for sturdier trousers and his shoes for boots in addition to the tunic and cloak. "Where'd he go?"  
  
"To tell the ruling council of this village that we have arrived. They should be here shortly. Pola was... impressed... with your talent."  
  
The Amberite appeared to consider this for a moment. Then he produced a well-polished red apple from a pouch on his belt and took a crunching bite. "What's this prophecy he mentioned?"  
  
The chair Atrus pulled back from a table scraped roughly across the wooden floor. "In the Misaran holy texts there is a prophecy related to the object we seek. It states that a Seeker will appear from afar to reclaim it for the people."  
  
"And you were supposed to be that Seeker, I take it. They weren't expecting another one." Raven took another bite from the apple.  
  
A smile curled the D'ni's bearded lips. "I've never put much stock in prophecies either." Voices drifted into the tavern through the open door. "The Council has arrived." Atrus stood once more.  
  
More than the Council, in fact, had made their way to greet the visitors. More than twenty Misarans of all ages filed into the tavern, all of them pale-skinned and fair-haired. Of them, seven wore headdresses and pale brown robes marking them as the Council members. Each headdress differed from the rest; one resembled antlers carved from the same dark wood as the tavern's walls, ceiling, rafters, floor, chairs and tables; another bore shimmering blue-green feathers swept up and back into an impressive crest; a third rattled as its beautiful female wearer moved her head, setting the beads which hung from the headdress on leather cords swinging and clacking. Atrus approached the tallest of the group, still relatively lithe though the burliest of the group that Raven could see, and placed his hands over his face before bowing. "I have returned as I promised, Council Dumo."  
  
Dumo placed a pale hand on Atrus' shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. The Misaran intoned formally in a deep voice, "We welcome you back to our bosom with open hearts, Seeker Atrus. Do not bow to us, for you will lead us to the Higher World."  
  
With the formalities out of the way, Atrus straightened and turned to introduce his companion. "This man is Raven, and he too is a Seeker. He will go with me to face the challenges."  
  
"A second Seeker?" whispered the man with the wooden antlers. Raven privately thought the man's face belonged more on a weasel than a stag. "This is... irregular."  
  
"Perhaps, Council Jeti. But the holy texts do not specifically prohibit a second Seeker, and with the two of us working together, our chances of success increase greatly. Raven is a gifted man and has accompanied me in my travels before."  
  
To Jeti's left, another of the councilwomen -- this one wearing a thick leather headband set with coral and amber -- folded her arms under her small breasts and scowled. "You expect us to place our trust in a complete stranger?"  
  
"I will vouch for Raven, Council Yoae. I have unshakeable faith in him."  
  
"Does he not speak for himself?" asked the beaded woman in a sonorous voice Raven liked immediately.  
  
"I allow Atrus to speak for me," Raven explained, "because he knows you and your ways. I'll answer any questions you want to ask me."  
  
Atrus interrupted the woman's next words. "Council Sira, before you begin, I have one small favor to ask."  
  
"Of course, Seeker Atrus."  
  
"Raven and I have journeyed long today and we would like to refresh ourselves. May we reconvene in two hours?" asked Atrus.  
  
The Council members regarded each other briefly. Dumo nodded his assent and spread his arms wide. "The hospitality of Misara is open to you both. We will gather here in two hours' time." With that pronouncement the crowd of onlookers shuffled back out of the tavern, whispering among themselves. Raven took a last bite of his apple and flicked the core through Shadow to land in some parallel world. Dumo watched the display with obvious interest. "You are a powerful man," he said. A statement, not a question.  
  
"Not as powerful as some," replied Raven in a characteristic Amberite dodge.  
  
"We shall see. Come, we will go to my dwelling. You may clean yourselves and rest there, and my wife will prepare the evening meal for us." Dumo led them from the tavern out into the mist.  
  
The Misaran village was laid out in a rough circle around a large open common ground of hardy grass. A trail cut into the woods to the north led to the shore. The tavern, by contrast, had been constructed hard against the forest in the south. Single-level houses built on stone foundations four to six feet high ringed the commons, warm light filling their windows. Each house had a flight of steps leading up to a large roofed porch where families gathered to catch a glimpse of the Seeker and his companion. Curious children peered over rough dark railings or sat on the steps with their parents, gawking openly as Dumo led Atrus and Raven away from the tavern. He brought them to his home just west of the trail. As they stepped onto the porch they could smell a delicious spicy aroma. "Mefe is making her special stew," Dumo declared with a broad grin. "Please, come inside."  
  
The Councilman led them into the main room of the house. Directly across from them a small woman, Dumo's wife Mefe, busied herself stirring a large black iron cookpot handing from a thick hook-arm that rotated toward and away from the blazing fire. "I return, Wife," he greeted her.  
  
"Welcome back to your home, Husband," Mefe gave in the traditional reply. She straightened and paused only briefly when she saw the men Dumo had brought with him. Mefe was a pretty woman. Raven had no way to judge her age, but she seemed to be her husband's contemporary. "Seeker Atrus, you honor our home with your presence. Who is the newcomer?"  
  
Dumo spoke. "This is Raven. He is also a Seeker. Seeker Raven, my beloved wife Mefe." The Amberite gave Mefe a courtly bow. Seeker or not, traditions or no, he was not about to cover his face in a gesture of submission to any Misaran.  
  
"I am honored to be a guest in your dwelling, madam," he said gravely.  
  
"As well-mannered as Seeker Atrus. Truly we are blessed." Mefe gave the pot another stir. "Please show the Seekers to the spare rooms so they might freshen up, Dumo."  
  
"Of course, Mefe." The Councilman grinned broadly at Atrus and Raven. "Right this way."  
  
A doorway in the main room's west wall opened onto a small hall with four doors, all on the west side. Dumo indicated the two middle doors. "Inside you will find washbasins and drycloths. If you wish to rest, I will call you for the evening meal. Please feel at home."  
  
Raven watched Dumo return to the main room, his expression blank. "They a ritualistic people, as I told you," Atrus explained. "All things considered I think you made a very good impression."  
  
"Not difficult. Someday soon I'll take you to Amber and let you drown in the sea of political doublespeak and innuendo for a bit." With a heavy sigh the Amberite shook his head. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to avail myself of their generous hospitality."  
  
"See you at dinner," said Atrus.  
  
Once ensconced in his room Atrus stripped off his vest and tunic and washed with steaming water from a white porcelain basin. It was good to be back with the Misarans. Their formal interactions blended with their respect for nature in a unique manner that he found both intriguing and reassuring. Catherine would be amused by the protocols which lay between even two people as close as Mefe and Dumo. Some day soon, he promised himself, he would bring her here for a time.  
  
Atrus finished his bath, brought his ink, pen and journal out of his pack, and sat on the floor next to the large feather-mattress bed. He dipped the pen and began to write.  
  
"The quest has not yet begun, but already I feel a hesitant sense of impending success. Raven's swift agreement was a boon I could not have welcomed more. With his Amberite intellect and the strange powers he draws from this mysterious 'Pattern' combined with my knowledge of Misanan culture, we should be able to overcome any challenge.  
  
"I did not even notice this morning when I set the Linking Book to this Age on the spot where the Prison Book that held Sirrus once lay. Even now I am still torn inside between wanting to forget his and Achenar's existances, their terrible betrayal of their mother, myself and everything we taught them, and cherishing the memory of the way they once were. I do not know if this conflict will ever be resolved. Time has not healed the wound, only lessened the pain a very little bit.  
  
"Still, the love and respect of the people of this Age and many others gives me hope. This I will carry with me always."  
  
Leaving the pages open to dry, Atrus doffed his spectacles, climbed into the bed, closed his eyes and fell fast asleep.  
  
On the other side of the wall, Raven toweled himself off and brought out the deck of special Trumps his cousin Merlin had given him as a gift years ago. Flopping down on the bed, he took the cards out of their case. He shuffled through and withdrew a card depicting a beautiful green-haired woman standing before a frosted-glass window, looking back over her shoulder with a hidden, knowing smile. His mother, the princess Llewella, should be at her home in the undersea city of Rebma. His icy eyes focused on the image. Raven reached out with his mind, searching for his mother's thoughts. After a few minutes he felt a response, and the image on the card began to move.  
  
"Hello, Raven," the woman said.  
  
"Hello, Mother. Your beauty is stunning, as always."  
  
Llewella dismissed his flattery with a tiny flick of her fingers. "Random told me you were in Amber not long ago. Official business?"  
  
"Of a sort," Raven dodged. "I'll be out of touch for a while. I met up with my friend Atrus and decided to join him on an excursion. Thought I should let you know in case anyone wanted to get in touch with me."  
  
Amusement sparkled in the eyes of the woman in the image. "You deliberately avoid them most of the time. Why would you want to change that?"  
  
"You're right, I wouldn't. Like mother, like son," he teased. Neither he nor his mother had any taste for the political games of Amber. He could tolerate the quick-witted King of Amber for a few days at a time"I'll tell you all about the journey when I return to Rebma."  
  
"Until then," Llewella said, and the contact was broken. Raven shuffled her card back into the deck and returned the cards to their case. Then he set them aside and let himself drop into sleep.  
  
A dreamless hour passed. Gentle rapping lifted Raven from his doze. "Seeker Raven, the evening meal is prepared. We would be honored by your presence," said Domu from the other side of the door. A gentle way of saying 'get your fanny out here and eat', he surmised. He rose and dressed quickly. Atrus was already waiting in the main room. No one was seated yet. Domu indicated an empty chair and Raven stood behind it.  
  
Mefe brought bowls of a thick, chunky stew to the table. She set one in front of Raven and one before Atrus, then served her husband and herself. Finally she stood behind her own chair and held out her hands, one to Domu and one to Atrus. Raven linked his hands with the other two men and listened as Mefe sang a verse in some alien language. The liquid consonants and flowing vowels reminded him of the sea and the mist that surrounded this island.  
  
When the benediction was concluded, the Misarans sat. Atrus and Raven took their seats as well. Atrus immediately picked up his eating utensil, which resembled a spoon with small fork tines on the end, and plucked a steaming bit of tuber from the stew. The D'ni knew that the Misarans were waiting for his opinion on the meal, and he was honestly delighted. The native spices blended with the meat juice and heaty flavor of the tuber into a pleasing whole. "Your cooking is without parallel," he said to Mefe. "Truly delicious."  
  
Raven quickly followed suit and bit into a chunk of tender meat quite like choice beef from Merlin's fabled "Shadow Earth". The spices reminded him of oregano and basil, with a faint dash of paprika and cinnamon. "I haven't had anything this good in quite some time," he admitted. "Thank you for sharing it with me."  
  
By the way the Misaran couple smiled as they began to eat, Raven knew he'd continued the favorable impression. Throughout the meal Atrus spoke of the adventures he and the Amberite had shared, focusing especially on their recent battle with Minos, the insane and puissant Logrus-sorceror who ruled over the Shadow/Age-spanning Labyrinth. Raven filled in details, including his encounter with Daedalus, the man forced by Minos to forge the awesome construct. Together the D'ni and the Amberite had made their way through devious mazes, puzzles of twisted logic and lethal traps to the center of the Labyrinth, where they faced down Minos himself. Raven conveniently left out the sorceror's astonishing ability to damage Raven's link to the Pattern -- something he hadn't even told Random.  
  
The second hour had passed. Mefe gathered the dishes and Domu wished her a fond yet formal farewell, promising to return home swiftly. The Councilman led the Seekers back to the Tavern where the rest of the Council was already gathered.  
  
The tables had been pushed against the walls and the Council were seated in a wide semi-circle. Domu took his chair in the center, between Sira and Jeti. Atrus and Raven stood among them. "The Council is gathered. Before us stand two Seekers, Atrus and Raven, come to us from afar to return the Orb of Geda to our people. Welcome, Seekers." As one the Council rose and bowed, covering their faces with their hands, then sat again.  
  
"Thank you for your welcome, Council," Atrus said. "Though I know the story of the Orb and its importance to the people, my companion has not heard the tale. Would you grace us with its telling?"  
  
Domu's eyes shifted to the man at the far right end of the Council's arc. His headdress was formed of leaves of dyed leather arranged into an artful crown. The man's face was lined with the passage of years and his limbs were withered, though he moved with the grace of the young. He spoke in a strong, gravelly voice.  
  
"This is the story of the Orb of Geda. Ages ago our people were ruled by a wise chief, named Geda. Geda was fair and strong, and he loved our people and our land like no other. His wisdom gave us peace and prosperity.  
  
"Even Geda's wisdom could not have foreseen the terrible blight that befell Misana. Plants and animals alike sickened and died, on the land and in the once-bountiful ocean. The people starved, and Geda weakened twofold, in body and in spirit, to see the suffering. Try though he might Geda could see no way to give succor to his people. The birds sang no more.  
  
"Then, as he lay in his bed burning with fever, he was given a vision. If he would sacrifice himself atop the cliffs that overlook the ocean far to the north of the isle of the people, the Higher World would take pity and bring health back to all. In the dead of night Geda stole from his dwelling and plunged into the sea in a tiny boat.  
  
"Fever-demons within and storm without battered Geda, but he knew that if he failed his people would die. He pushed on, surviving through his will alone, and reached the northern shore. Beaten, weak and dying, Geda crawled his way to the clifftop and collapsed upon the ground.  
  
"'Hear me, o thou of the Higher World,' he gasped as his breath began to fail him, 'I have come from the isle of the people to give myself for the sake of all life. I give my life for theirs.' And then he despaired, for he had brought no ritual knife with him. As his heart broke his tears wet the ground. Finally he died.  
  
"Those of the Higher World heard his prayer and knew that he had sacrificed himself for his people. Geda's tears congealed in the earth and mixed with it. An orb of perfect love was formed, and its light gave breath back to Geda. When he saw the orb he knew that his sacrifice had not been in vain. Taking the orb, Geda returned to the people.  
  
"On that day, not one of the people perished. The next, the birds made their songs once more. The plants flowered in a glorious spring and game and fish were plentiful again. The people praised Geda and worshipped his name.  
  
"But Geda knew that he was no god. He beseeched the people to cover their eyes and gaze not upon the orb or his face, but to feel love in their hearts and trust in themselves and each other. From that day forth the people of Misana have covered their eyes to each other in show of faith and love. This is the story of the Orb of Geda."  
  
Silence had the floor in the tavern room for several minutes as Raven considered the legend. Certain elements of it were common to mythologies throughout shadow -- threats to the existance of the people, a great sacrifice, resurrection and return. Apparently this Orb was real, since he and Atrus were about to go looking for it. What was it really? The only way to figure that out would be to find it. Atrus broke the silence. "Thank you, Council Odei, for imparting the wisdom of the tale to us." The elderly Councilman regained his seat.  
  
On the other side, a young woman barely out of childhood rose. "This is the quest of the Seeker. In four days we will be celebrating one thousand years since Geda's sacrifice and return. Our holy texts prescribe ritual observances for this sacred day. To complete the ritual, we need the Orb. But hundreds of years ago the Orb was stolen from us and locked away in a tower erected on the site of Geda's sacrifice.  
  
"Without the Orb, the rituals will not be complete, and the sickness will return to Misana. Our bravest have attempted to recover the Orb, with no success. Now, the promised Seeker from afar has come to us. The Seeker must recover the Orb of Geda. This is the quest of the Seeker."  
  
Again Atrus spoke after a pause. "Thank you, Council Tilo, for imparting the wisdom of our quest to us."  
  
Domu looked to Sila. Sila rose.  
  
The beautiful woman studied both Seekers, the clacking of her beaded headdress mingling with the crackling fire as she looked from one to the other. "For ages we have have known that the Seeker would come to us in our time of need. But we could not have anticipated that the Seeker would be not one, but two. Seeker Atrus, you agreed to quest for the Orb. Why have you brought this man Raven to us?"  
  
Privately, Raven wanted to see how his friend would get around this pitfall. While he had to admit a fondness for Domu and his wife, in the grand scheme of things Misara didn't mean much. Not only that, but time and again he had seen prophecies come to pass not because the events had been forseen, but because the people made them happen in their fervor. Still, he knew Atrus would go after the Orb on his own if the Council decided there should indeed be only one Seeker, and though he had faith in his D'ni friend's abilities, he'd much rather be by Atrus' side to ensure success.  
  
Atrus cleared his throat and scratched his beard. He'd given some thought to this particular puzzle, but tradition and formality ran strong in these people and he was somewhat worried he wouldn't be able to make all these pieces fit into a whole the Misarans would find acceptible. He decided to try his strongest gambit first. No use wasting time. "Raven and I have traveled together through many lands. Council Domu has heard us tell of our last quest, to defeat a powerful sorceror. Alone, neither of us would have succeeded. Together, we were able to overcome the evil one and save not just one world, but many. I believe he and I are parts of a whole, brothers in spirit if not in blood. I give Raven my love and trust as a brother. I ask you to trust the faith you have placed in me, and trust my faith in him. Together we are the Seeker."  
  
Raven forced himself to maintain a blank expression. Yes, the D'ni's words were a bit presumptive, but that was from an Amberite view of things. Atrus spoke truly. Neither of them would have been able to defeat Minos and destroy the Labyrinth alone. Many times on that adventure they had relied on each other, with no room for doubt. They had proven themselves to each other. His friendship and respect for Atrus deepened in that moment, as did his appreciation of Atrus' skill in diplomacy.  
  
His friend would do well in Amber, he thought.  
  
The council members whispered to each other as they considered Atrus' words. Atrus had appealed to their cultural traditions, following the ancient ways. There was no doubt that he was the Seeker. Raven was an unknown, a stranger to them, though he had been respectful to them all. Atrus said Raven was a part of him, that together they were more than they were individually. If the two men were the Seeker together, splitting them apart would prove disasterous. If they were not the Seeker, it was not said that the Seeker would not have aid from others in the holy texts.  
  
A decision was reached.  
  
Domu stood and offered his hands to Atrus and Raven. "We trust in our faith and yours. You are both the Seeker in our eyes. Tomorrow you will quest for the Orb of Geda, to bring it back to the people. You will leave at first light. Tonight we will celebrate." The rest of the Council rose and clasped hands with the men one by one, then as a whole bowed once more, faces covered. All the Council except Domu filed out.  
  
"Truly well-spoken, Seeker Atrus," the Councilman said. "Even if my mind had been set in stone against this, your wisdom would have freed it from that rigid prison." He turned to Raven and said, "It is my sincere hope that you understand what has been said and done here. Be proud of your brother, as he is proud of you."  
  
The Amberite allowed himself a small smile. "I am."  
  
"Let us prepare for the celebration," said Domu. "Mefe will be pleased."  
  
That evening, a pit was cleared on the common grounds and a blazing bonfire was lit. The people of Misara, young and old, gathered to meet the two men who were the Seeker, to sing and tell stories, and to celebrate life. Even Raven couldn't hope to remember a tiny fraction of the names he heard, one after another. Young maidens smiled shyly at him as he greeted them. Little boys mimicked his courtly bows and laughed at his jokes. Atrus knew most of these people already and greeted them again with warmth and love. He spoke of his travels to other Ages, to the delight of all. Yes, Catherine would enjoy life here in Misara.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Raven caught Sila watching him with a critical gaze. Excusing himself briefly he crossed to her and bowed once more. "Council Sila."  
  
"Seeker Raven," she said quietly.  
  
"Your eyes tell me you have private doubts."  
  
The woman mastered a glare. Evidently he'd hit a nerve. "Your cleverness does you a disservice."  
  
"I meant no offense, of course." Not quite an apology, more a statement of fact. He decided to take a different tack. "I find the ways of your people intriguing. I'd like to learn more."  
  
"You will," Sila said simply. Though her expression betrayed nothing, the gleam in her eyes spoke volumes. She turned and walked away, with only a quick glance back.  
  
"And Mother wonders why I don't play with the cousins much," the Amberite muttered darkly. He made his way back to Atrus, who was concluing an ancient story of D'ni.  
  
The bearded man had noted Sila's departure. "Dare I ask what that was about?"  
  
"Anthropology doesn't suit me," rejoined Raven.  
  
"Archaeology seems more your style, yes," Atrus said. His friend relaxed a bit. "It seems that we're going to be treated to something special in a little while."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Yes, Domu made mention of a dance of some kind. This should prove quite interesting."  
  
Raven simply nodded. His eyes searched the crowd but found no trace of Sila. His disappointment was brief, but sharp.  
  
An hour later, the children were herded to bed by their parents. The remaining adults and the Council members, including Sila, seated themselves on the grass as a group. Several men and women brought out hide drums and carved wood flutes. Domu indicated that Raven should sit next to him, and Atrus on the other side of Mefe. "You will enjoy this," he assured them.  
  
The gathering fell silent. A lone drummer struck his instrument and a rolling of thunder echoed across the clearing. Again, and again, then he was joined by another, and another in a complex and primal rhythm, like the heartbeat of the earth. Over the ground of drums came the wind of the flutes, dancing, soaring and diving. The music held the listeners enthralled. Raven felt himself carried off and almost didn't notice when Sila stood and glided to stand in front of them.  
  
The flutes drifted away, and all the drums but one fell silent. "Tonight I have asked for the right to explore one of the deepest mysteries of our people. We have gathered here to celebrate life in joy for the coming of the Seeker. To show my joy, I requested of the Council and was given perission to perform the Dance of Life."  
  
Murmurs rippled through the gathering. Atrus only smiled; he had been told about this most sacred of dances during his last stay here. Domu leaned over and whispered an explanation to Raven. "The Dance of Life is an expression of the primal joy we feel in our connection to all living things. We believe that the inspiration for the Dance comes from the Higher World. When we feel that joy surge within us as a people, as we do now, a woman will feel the desire to perform the Dance. It is somewhat... suggestive, at times, which is why we wait for the children to sleep before the performance."  
  
One black eyebrow crept up Raven's forehead. So this is what Sila had meant. His gaze drank in her exquisite features, bathed the golden orange of a blazing sunrise by the bonfire. The single drum echoed again and was once more joined by its brothers, summoning the rhythm of life. Sila grasped her robe and drew it up and over her body to reveal a clinging wrap of shimmering material, which threw sparks of light around her. She cast the robe into the flames turned to face her audience. Her eyes were closed.  
  
Then she began the Dance.  
  
Raven had never seen anything so sensual. Sila's body became an incarnation of the pulse of life, driven by the thundering drums. She caressed the sky, wound down to the ground and embraced the earth itself. Her body rippled with the sinuous arching of the ocean's waves. All this time her eyes were closed.  
  
The rhythm grew faster, and Sila's motions rode with it. She spun, stood on the ball of one foot and grasped for the heavens. The light of the bonfire embraced her body, transforming her into an angel of light. Fire shot across her as her arms twisted like glorious serpents, taking the postures of living things. Her eyes opened.  
  
Sila looked directly at Raven. Their eyes locked. Heat burned inside him like the core of a world. He knew, in that moment, that she was dancing for him.  
  
Again the drums became faster. Sila's Dance became an ecstatic trance of motion, wind across the desert, lightning splitting the sky. Her steps brought her closer to her chosen one. Then, suddenly, the drums stopped.  
  
Sila collapsed to her knees in front of Raven. Her skin was slick with the sweat of her exertion, lit by the fires without and within. Slowly she lifted her head. Her gaze was shrouded by her soaked and tossed tresses. In spite of himself, Raven reached out and brushed aside the damp locks. Sila smiled. For a moment they remained frozen, gazing into each other's eyes.  
  
"This is the Dance of Life," she whispered. Then she sat back on her heels and smiled to her people. "This is the Dance of Life," she said again, strong and proud. "Our joy given form." The Misarans and Atrus applauded as Sila stood. Raven remained paralyzed in awe.  
  
Sila walked away from the fire, followed by Raven's entranced gaze. Domu gripped the Amberite's shoulder gently. "She favors you, Seeker Raven."  
  
The trance was broken. Raven inhaled deeply and wondered if he had breathed at all during the dance. "I... I'm honored."  
  
"As are we all. It is time to rest, now. The morning awaits us." The crowd dispersed to their homes, their hearts full of wonder. Raven levered himself off the ground and followed Atrus and Domu back to the Councilman's house.  
  
That night, Atrus slept soundly, wrapped in thoughts of Catherine. Raven's dreams were haunted by images of Sila bathed in glorious flames, dancing at the heart of the world.  
  
Morning was shrouded in deep fog. Mefe prepared a breakfast of thin broth, a substantial brown bread and sharp yellow cheese. Once they had eaten, Raven and Atrus gathered their few belongings and accompanied Domu down the forest path to the shore.  
  
The mist parted as they reached the fine sand of the beach. The sun, just rising in the east, played across a magnificant white boat anchored offshore. A raft of vine-lashed logs awaited them, as did the entire Council and many of the other inhabitants of the village. Raven's heart stopped when Sila, clad in another brown robe, met his eyes and smiled. Domu clasped each man's hands and blessed them and their journey. "The Higher World has brought you to us from afar. Our faith and love go with you to find the Orb of Geda. We await your return with open arms and open hearts."  
  
Raven and Atrus climbed onto the raft. An invisible force pulled the small craft away from the shore on a steady course for the boat. Atrus studied the craft with a keen eye, taking note of its form. Twin gauzy sails arched up from the sides like the wings of a hummingbird paused in their frantic beating. The prow swept high and proud, and the stern boasted a small deckhouse. A rope ladder hung over the gunwale for them to board. There was no one visible aboard the vessel.  
  
Raven's eyes remained fixed on Sila.  
  
When the raft reached the boat it stopped gently. Atrus grasped the rope and climbed aboard swiftly. His Amberite companion took one last long look at the shore and raised his arm in farewell. Sila mirrored his gesture. Heartened, Raven clambered up after Atrus.  
  
The raft pulled away from the boat, and the gleaming ivory vessel turned north, toward the far shore. 


	3. Seeker's Journey -- Part Two

"Seeker's Journey"  
Part Three  
by Corvus  
  
The warm rays of the slowly climbing sun set the blue waters to sparkling. Under the ever-changing surface, Atrus could see a school of multi-colored brekka fish dancing to unknown rhythms, moving this way and that, scattering when a larger saw-toothed ystra surged among them. The sleek predator snapped its jaws shut and caught a brekka behind its fins, then turned and swam away with its meal. The school regathered and continued on as if nothing had happened, like a living pond temporarily disturbed by a splash.  
  
Life goes on, he mused. But if they failed to recover the Orb, life might not go on. Better to play the fool for silly superstition than to remain a skeptic and be wrong.  
  
Once, off to port, a dolphin broke the surface of the water with a graceful leap. It and three more approached the boat to swim alongside for a few miles. Atrus leaned over the rail and called a friendly hello. The dolphins squeaked and clicked in response. For a moment there was a bond of camaraderie between sailor and swimmer, a touching of the worlds above and below the waves.  
  
Raven had no such interest in fish or dolphins. He sat with his back to the deckhouse in the stern. Try though he might the Amberite couldn't think about anything but Sila. Never had he felt such an intense attaction before. Did she truly favor him, as Domu had said? They barely knew each other, and had only spoken for those few brief moments. It didn't make sense to him that she would want anything to do with him. Perhaps, instead, it was her way of getting even for the insult he had unintentionally given her. But according to Domu, the Dance wasn't something you just did. That couldn't be it either.  
  
The thin, high cirrus clouds overhead held no answers. Ittiration flared in Raven's mind; if he couldn't concentrate he would be nothing but a burden to Atrus. "Hey, Atrus!" he called to the other man.  
  
The D'ni straightened and turned. "Yes?"  
  
"Do you have any idea what we're going to find inside the tower?"  
  
"Unfortunately, no. We're going to be travelling blind." Atrus stroked his beard briefly as he pondered. "I don't want to assume too much, but I think it's reasonable for us to expect puzzles and traps. If the entity that took the Orb didn't want it to be found, the Orb wouldn't be in the tower, it would be long gone."  
  
"Assuming the Orb is, indeed, there," Raven muttered. More loudly he said, "Any idea on who might have taken the thing in the first place?"  
  
Atrus shook his head in the negative. "No more than you might have."  
  
Several ideas manifested in Raven's mind, none of them pleasant. He had to remind himself that Misara was inconsequential to Amber and the Courts of Chaos. There was no reason that any of them would get involved. There was, however, the matter of the tower. The Misarans didn't seem to have the power or inclination to raise such a structure. Perhaps it was another offworlder. "This reminds me of the Labyrinth. No idea what we're going to see around the next corner or through the next door."  
  
Atrus made a small noise of agreement. He turned back to the ocean and found that the dolphins had swum off. While he had time he decided to make a sketch in his journal.  
  
The sun climbed higher into the sky as the boat sailed on, propelled -- or drawn -- by the unseen force. At noon, the seaside mountain range appeared on the horizon. As the vista grew they were able to make out the distinct form of the tower high above the waves.  
  
"That cliff has to be at least four hundred feet high," Raven observed. "But if a half-dead lunatic can get up it, I think we'll manage fairly well."  
  
His companion laughed softly. "It's been a while since I've gone climbing. Perhaps I should start warming up now."  
  
The dark, jagged face of the cliff looked for all the world like some cosmic giant had cleaved the earth and torn it asunder. It rose straight up from the broad, flat beach at its base and vaulted directly into the tower itself. From here the men could see that the image the Linking Book had shown them was true -- there were no windows or other openings.  
  
Atrus sketched the cliff and tower on the page opposite his drawing of the dolphin. Quick, sharp strokes outlined the featureless wall of the structure and defined the ragged rock beneath. As Raven watched his friend work he entertained the notion that Atrus had all the skill necessary to learn the creation of Trumps. Perhaps he could convince Merlin to teach the D'ni.  
  
The boat began to slow. The tower soared overhead as if seeking to defy earth, sea and sky all at once. Raven continued to study the cliff face, trying to pick out the optimum route for climbing. He could always carry Atrus on his back if worse came to worst. A hundred yards from shore the boat turned its prow to the east and came to a halt.  
  
"Looks like this is our stop," said Atrus as he picked up his pack.  
  
Raven moved over to the rail and threw the rope ladder over the side. "I don't see a raft here. Looks like we're gonna have to get wet." Atrus frowned as he considered all the items in his pack that would be ruined by the sea water. "Tell you what," Raven offered, "Let me go over first and see how deep it is. If it's shallow enough you can just carry your pack over your head. If not, you can always leave it here."  
  
"Hmm, yes." Atrus nodded, and Raven climbed over the side to make his way down to the water.  
  
Surprisingly, when the Amberite touched bottom the water was only up to his chest. He held Atrus' pack while the other man dropped from the ladder into the sea, then handed it back. Together the two men waded their way to the beach.  
  
Raven solved the problem of their soaked clothing by stepping through Shadow again. He encountered more resistance than he was used to, as if nearing Amber itself, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind as an anomaly to be investigated later. He dressed and returned to Atrus with fresh clothing for the other man.  
  
While Atrus changed, Raven walked up to the cliff. Shading his icy eyes from the bright midday sun, he weighed several possible routes of ascent. None of them looked particularly promising. The rocks were unnaturally sharp on their edges and there were few if any cracks. It was like the stone had been protected from the elements somehow. Curious, Raven summoned the image of the Pattern to his mind. Again he encountered resistance, and the surprise disrupted his concentration. "This is bizarre," he said to himself.  
  
"I think I know what you mean," Atrus said from beside him. "No evidence of erosion on the rocks. No stratification in the stone, either, now that I get a good look at it."  
  
"That's not all. There's something strange here, somehow making it harder for me to use the power of the Pattern. Some kind of resistance."  
  
"How do you feel physically?"  
  
The Amberite thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I feel fine. I don't think there are any lingering effects of what Minos did to me. I don't know what's going on. When I first noticed the resistance, it was like trying to walk through Shadow when you're close to Amber. Takes a lot more effort. But that doesn't explain the difficulty I'm having in imaging the Pattern in my mind."  
  
"You've never encountered anything like this before?" Atrus asked.  
  
Again Raven shrugged. "No, not that I've noticed."  
  
"Well, then, let us proceed with intellect, since the magical has failed us." Atrus reached out to touch the rock. It was slick to the touch, his fingers skittering across the surface. There would be no climbing here today. He would give a lot for the machines and talent of the D'ni of old, who easily could have fathomed the mysteries of this cliff. "One thing I've learned in my travels is to never give up. There's always a way around an obstacle, sometimes very different from what we expect. Let's look around."  
  
As Atrus walked slowly eastward along the base of the cliff, he imagined himself as Geda, struggling to live just long enough to reach the summit. What would a fevered, starving, half-mad man do here? He knelt to touch the sand, scooped a handful of it and held it up close to his face. Nothing unusual there, just the ordinary silicates. He tossed the sand aside and dug with both hands. Again, nothing unusual. Atrus stood and brushed his hands off on his pants. The beach itself evidently wasn't the answer.  
  
Raven tried once more to summon the Pattern. This time he was prepared for the resistance, but that didn't make it any easier. When finally the nigh-impossible symbol burned brightly in his mind's eye he looked at the cliff through the lens of its power. Yes, there was something protecting the rocks and the wall of the tower as well. That didn't solve the mystery of how to get in, though. He knew better than to try to batter a hole in the arcane field.  
  
Perhaps the cliff wasn't part of the problem, reasoned Atrus. Maybe it was meant to lead them astray. In his delirious state, Geda would have seen things quite differently and may have grasped the answer that way. Atrus threw himself into the sand and did his best to convince himself that he was feverish, hungry and above all terrified.  
  
The sudden motion drew Raven's attention from the cliff and the strange field. "Have you suddenly gone mad?" he demanded of Atrus.  
  
"There's a method to my madness," the D'ni said, "and madness might just be the method we need." He shouted wordlessly at the sky, snatched up handfuls of sand and flung them at the cliff, and rolled around. What would he do in a situation like this? He was hungry. Sick. Scared.  
  
Scared.  
  
What would a frightened man do at a time like this? Especially one who thought he had seen a vision? He would pray.  
  
"O thou of the Higher World," shouted Atrus, "we are the Seeker, come as fortold in the holy writings of the people! We come for the Orb of Geda!"  
  
To Raven's complete astonishment, a section of the rock in the cliff swung outward to reveal a fifteen-foot carved archway in the stone leading into blackness. The arch was decorated with strange runes that ran all the way up one side and down the other. "How did you do that?"  
  
Atrus plucked off a boot and shook out the sand that had gotten into it during his gyrations. "Like I said, madness was the method. I put myself in Geda's place and tried to imagine what he would have done. He would have appealed to his gods."  
  
"It sure looks like somebody was listening," said Raven. The archway held no strange force field to bar him from passing through with hesitant steps. Once inside the portal he closed his eyes and covered them with his hands, then counted to one hundred to let his vision adjust to darkness. He took five steps and opened his eyes. The light coming through the arch revealed a patchwork floor of stone tiles. The sound of the wind and waves echoed around him, indicating a chamber of moderate size. He still couldn't see anything, though.  
  
Atrus put his second boot back on his foot, picked up his pack and entered the archway. No sooner did he have both feet on the stone tiles than the rock concealing the portal swung back on its hinges and closed with a reverberating slam, locking them in pitch blackness. Raven instinctively reached for the Pattern and was completely blocked. Atrus heard his growl of irritation. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Whatever it is sealing this place off, it's got me completely blocked from the Pattern. I can't even reach it."  
  
"I have candles. Just a moment." The D'ni set his pack down and rummaged through it by feel. He produced two small pillar candles each an inch thick and four inches long, then found the flame-producing "Zippo lighter" Raven had given him as a gift. He lit one candle with the lighter and the second candle off the first, then looked around. The tiny flames revealed nothing of the walls or ceiling of this chamber, but they did cast enough of a pool of light to show that the tile in the stones was laid with an irregular pattern of blue, red and green. Each tile, however, was secure against its neighbors, so well-cut and laid that there were no visible seams. "Someone put a lot of effort into the floor," he mused.  
  
"I don't think this is the time to be admiring the floor, Atrus," said Raven. "Hand me one of those candles, and let's admire a way out of here."  
  
Raven took the candle Atrus handed him and immediately went looking for the opposite wall of the chamber. Atrus slung his pack over his shoulder once more and moved back to the wall next to the archway, then began following the wall around. On this side of things the stone felt like common granite and was much more regular, most likely carved. A place like this wouldn't have taken the D'ni long to carve out at all. For a moment he was reminded of his prison, where he sat and waited while a human stranger traveled the Ages to learn the secret of Sirrus and Achenar's terrible betrayal. There appeared to be no other exits along the western wall. He saw the light of Raven's candle disappear, then reappear. "I've found the way out," the Amberite's voice echoed.  
  
Atrus made his way to where Raven stood at the bottom of a flight of carved and polished steps cut from black, white and red marble and inlaid with gold. Each step was six inches high and nine inches deep, and from what he could see they curved to the left as they ascended between smooth walls. "Shall I go first?"  
  
"Be my guest," said Raven. Ordinarily he would have made a sarcastic bow, but his unease at being cut off from the Pattern drove thoughts of such flippancy from his mind. Atrus set foot on the stairs and began to climb.  
  
The staircase curled around in a slowly tightening spiral. To focus his mind Raven tried counting steps, but he lost track somewhere after five hundred. It was a good thing neither of the men were claustrophobic. Still they climbed. Atrus' D'ni heritage served him well; he was able to maintain a sense of direction, could see the arc of the staircase and guessed that they were approximately halfway up the cliff.  
  
Abruptly the stairwell opened into another chamber. Glowing globes of frosted glass were set on polished brass fixtures every ten feet around the twelve foot high wall of carved rock. The chamber itself was fifty feet in diameter and the ceiling curved up from the top of the wall toward an apex thirty feet above the center of the floor, from which hung a motionless three inch thick, foot long cylindrical brass pendulum on a steel cable. The pendulum hung three inches off the floor, which was decorated in concentric rings of black in the center, dark gray around it, light gray around that and white against the bottom of the wall. Their staircase ended in an archway similar to the one through which they had entered, and three more matching portals stood to the left, right and across from where the men stood.  
  
"Someone left the lights on for us. Out of the pit and up to the pendulum," Raven muttered without thinking. He blew out his candle. When Atrus looked at him for explanation he merely shrugged and walked over to the center of the floor. "Wonder what this thing is for."  
  
"Perhaps it is used to sense vibrations in the earth," offered Atrus as he put out his own candle. He pulled out his journal and made a quick sketch of the pendulum and cable, as well as the ceiling fixture at the apex of the rock dome. "It might just be decoration."  
  
Raven shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. We have three choices. Left, right or center?"  
  
"We're still inside the cliff, and we have no idea where any of these stairs lead. We'll have to try them all."  
  
"All right then, Monty," said Raven in another allusion to Shadow Earth culture, "let's try Door Number One."  
  
Again Atrus led the way. He got to the third step and Raven followed. Without warning the stairs rotated downward, forming a smooth slope. Atrus tumbled backward into Raven. The Amberite barely maintained his footing as he caught his friend. "That's definitely not it," said the D'ni as he adjusted his glasses.  
  
"What was your first clue?" Raven quipped. He shared a wry grin with Atrus and looked at the archway across from where they had entered this chamber. "Door Number Two?" Atrus nodded, took a deep breath for courage and walked across. The first step was as solid as it was expected to be, as were the second and third. Raven followed. They ascended without incident up a straight flight of thirty of the marble steps and reached another chamber. It too was circular, though only twenty feet in diameter and the ceiling was flat ten feet above their heads. Light came from two of the glowing glass globes attached to the ceiling. Against the back of the chamber stood a control panel displaying two ivory-handled brass levers in the "down" position, two three-spoked hand wheels and five analog dials. To the right was a chair and desk of the dark Misaran wood, polished and free of dust. On the desk were three books with blank green govers.  
  
"This appears to be a control room of some sort," said Atrus. "But controlling what?" He moved to the control panel and studied the numbered dials.  
  
Raven walked to the desk and opened the thinnest of the books. "'The secret of life is... cheese sticks.' No, that's not it. 'Quoth the raven...' No." A pause. "Wait a second... Atrus, this looks... This looks like D'ni writing."  
  
Atrus strode over to Raven and took the book from the Amberite's hands. Just as the other man had said, the pages were covered in neat, precise D'ni handwriting. Atrus flipped to the front of the book. The title stood out in bold, black letters: "Machine Operation Manual". He quickly scanned the pages, taking note of the hand-drawn illustrations. The machinery in this room controlled the flow of geothermally-generated steam from boilers deep within the earth to mechanisms in the staircases to the left and right in the chamber below them. "This is what we need," he said. "East Staircase -- that's the one we tried previously -- fifty-five, forty-three, twelve, twenty-nine, three." He pointed at the dials on the control panel. "We have to get those dials to match these numbers. Pushing both levers up releases the controls. The wheel on the left selects which dial to modify and the wheel on the right increases or decreases the number."  
  
Now that they had deciphered the purpose and working of the machine, Raven felt no qualms about grabbing both levers and pushing them both up. He heard a click and a resounding thunk floated up the stairs from the chamber below. He moved to the first wheel and gave it an experimental turn to the right. A light appeared above the third dial, then turned off again and a light appeared above the fourth. He turned the wheel to the left until the light appeared above the first dial and set to altering the number shown by the needle. Soon he had all five dials set to the numbers Atrus had read off. Grasping both levers, he pushed them back down. "Let's go check it out." Atrus closed the book but kept it in his hand.  
  
They made their way back down to the larger chamber below and tested the eastern staircase again. This time the steps remained as they were. The staircase led straight up thirty feet to a small chamber much like the control room. There was only a single lever here, in the "down" position. "What does that do?" Raven asked.  
  
Atrus consulted the machinery manual. "Apparently that lever is connected to a mechanism that lifts the pendulum assembly up to another level above us. It doesn't say why."  
  
"Let's find out," Raven said. He lifted the lever. Clanking noises reached them from the larger chamber. They hurried back down the stairs in time to see the brass pendulum disappear through a hole a foot wide in the ceiling. "Couldn't fit through it even if we could get up there. Okay, what about the western staircase?"  
  
"The fifth number in the sequence is missing."  
  
A scowl darkened the Amberite's features. "Oh, fantastic."  
  
Atrus waved his hand absently. "Don't worry, I've run into things like this before. The fifth number will be somewhere."  
  
Both men began scanning the walls and floor for a clue. When the larger chamber revealed nothing they returned to the control room and studied both books, then the room itself. The pendulum lever room likewise held no secrets. In a fit of pique, Raven stalked over to the western staircase and walked up ten steps before a segment of the staircase five steps wide, centered on him, dropped open. He barely caught the lower-end lip of the pit with one hand. Spitting a curse into the blackness below he began hauling himself out.  
  
Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. A glyph had been carved into the stone several inches down the side wall of the pit. It was the D'ni glyph for the number five. "Found it," he said.  
  
"Are you all right?" asked Atrus as Raven stepped off the staircase.  
  
"Been worse. The number was carved into the wall of the pit I almost fell into. Idiotic place to put it, if you ask me."  
  
"Not if you were testing someone," said Atrus.  
  
Raven inhaled deeply and blew a curly black lock out from in front of his eyes. "Come on, let's fix that staircase and get out of here."  
  
After setting the dials to the proper numbers the two men walked up the western staircase. It curved around in a spiral to the right and made two full revolutions around the circumference of the pendulum chamber before ending abruptly in a solid wooden door with a simple knob. Atrus turned the knob and found the door was unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped through.  
  
The chamber was again circular. It was larger than the others by far, easily three hundred feet in diameter. There was another doorway on the opposite side. Light poured down from eight massive crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling halfway between the wall and the center, where another foot-wide hole spoke of the passage of the pendulum from below. It was matched by a hole in the center of the floor.  
  
That floor was decorated in colorful tile mosaics. They told the story of Geda and the Orb as it had been related to them by old Odei, circling around from the doorway and back again. They stood atop the depiction of wise Geda settling his people's disputes. "This must have taken forever," Raven said with a whistle.  
  
"Not so long," replied Atrus. "At least, if the D'ni built this place. Which it would seem they did. Or they at least had a hand in its construction."  
  
Raven wondered, "What interest could they possibly have had in this place?"  
  
"This Age was created by the D'ni. I found the Book hidden on the island of K'veer. There was no record of who had written it, and it's entirely possible that it was written illegally. Still, when I found it the Book was in almost perfect condition. I took a chance and made a Linking Book. I found the village very quickly, and was able to make friends with them. I spent time learning their culture and history. They never mentioned anything about other visitors, though."  
  
The Amberite thought for a moment. "Could the one who wrote this have written in a backstory for the people so that they thought all those events had come to pass, when in actuality they hadn't?"  
  
"No, the book wasn't written that way," Atrus replied. "Whether or not the Orb really cured the sickness, something happened to create the legend of Geda a thousand of this Age's years ago. And sometime between then and now, the Orb disappeared and the tower was built."  
  
"Wouldn't they have noticed if the Orb disappeared?" That very question had been nagging at Raven since the previous evening.  
  
"Not if they were told not to gaze upon it."  
  
"Like in the story Odei told us," Raven agreed. "So Geda put the Orb somewhere and the people, trusting in his wisdom, never thought to doublecheck on it. Then someone comes along, filches the Orb and brings it here to this tower."  
  
That was the most plausible sequence of events Atrus could construst as well. He too had wondered how the Misarans could have just recently discovered the disappearance of the Orb and had come to that exact conclusion. The revelation of D'ni involvement opened up many new questions, but speculation was pointless.  
  
A pang of hunger nudged Atrus from his thoughts. They had been going all day without stopping for a meal. "Perhaps we should stop here for a bit."  
  
"I won't argue with that." They sat on the mosaic floor and ate a meal of trail rations, and their conversation turned to their very first meeting.  
  
Atrus had been in the library on Myst Island when he heard a splash and a string of shouted curses coming from near the Stoneship dock. When he went out to investigate he was accosted by a soaking-wet young man who demanded to know where he was. Atrus informed the man that he was on Myst Island and asked the newcomer's name. Rather than speak the remarkable fellow had simply taken three steps and vanished, then returned a moment later with a handful of dry clothing. Atrus had been quite taken aback by the display, which gave the newcomer time enough to stalk into the Planetarium to change.  
  
Once both men had reclaimed their wits, they introduced themselves to each other. At first Raven had concealed his heritage as a member of the royal family of Amber, just as Atrus concealed his own as a descendent of the ancient D'ni. One long afternoon on Myst Island spent exchanging stories turned into repeated contact between the two, usually on that same island. As they grew to trust each other the sarcastic Amberite and dependable D'ni both revealed more of their secrets. Atrus has shown Raven the ruins of the great D'ni underground city and the Amberite had taken his new friend walking through Shadow to the Earth that had become a focal point of the war for the throne years ago.  
  
Their first shared adventure had taken them to the desert Age of Al-Shada in search of a legendary Book rumored to detail a world of limitless wealth. The quest had ultimately proven fruitless, but their time spent with the desert tribes had strengthened their friendship. That bond continued to grow throughout successive forays across Shadow and into Ages written into Atrus' Books. It was put to the test when Raven had encountered a desperate artificer named Daedalus, who pleaded with the Amberite to destroy his greatest creation, the Labyrinth, and defeat the insane Logrus-controlled sorceror Minos who intended to use the Labyrinth for conquest.  
  
Lunch was well over when they agreed they had rested enough. Feeling refreshed, they crossed the mosaic floor to the doorway they hoped would take them further up. The door was unlocked, as the last had been, and the red, white and black marble steps on the other side curved up and to the right, circling around one full circumference.  
  
On the other side of the door at the top of the stairs was a sight which took Atrus' breath away. The entire hall, similar in size to the one below it, was filled with glowing crystal outcroppings. Raven passed through the door to stand beside his friend. "Now this," he remarked, is going to be interesting." 


	4. Seeker's Journey -- Part Three

"Seeker's Journey"  
Part Three  
by Corvus  
  
Rainbows of luminescence splashed the chamber in pools of infinite hue. Each step took they took painted their faces in a new idiom, like the sun through a great stained-glass window. Each outcropping was of a different size and shape; some growing tall and straight, some radiating out like shrubbery, others no bigger than a fist. The crystals were warm to the touch, like living things. Enraptured by the beautiful display, Atrus drew out his journal and scribbled furious notes and sketches.  
  
Raven knelt down next to a yellow five-pointed crystaline shrub and grasped one individual spine. With a quick inhumanly-strong wrench he snapped the spine at its base. The lemony light drained from the broken spine along with the strange warmth, leaving behind only a large quartz-like point. An eyebrow arched; these crystals were even more intriguing than he had first suspected. The Amberite walked away from the small gem shrub, humming quietly to himself.  
  
The crystal flared briefly in Raven's hand, then fell dead once more. He stopped, puzzled. After a minute of watching the crystal remained cold and clear. He took several careful steps backward, to no avail. What could have triggered the light? he wondered. Was it the humming? Experimentally he began the song again, and within a few seconds the crystal flashed once more. Raven narrowed down the sequence of notes and tried again, and was rewarded with another flash of yellow light. Finally he tried a single note. The light awakened a fourth time and continued to shine as long as he held the sound.  
  
"Atrus, you've got to see this." Raven approached the D'ni and held up the crystal point.  
  
Atrus looked up from his journal. "I haven't seen any other clear crystals. Where did you find that?"  
  
"Snapped it off a little yellow growth over that way," Raven informed him with a nod of his head. "The moment I broke it off it stopped glowing, but watch this." He hummed middle-C once more, summoning the lemon light. "How about that?"  
  
With an eager hand Atrus took the point and turned it this way and that, looking over every surface. "It appears to be quartz, but I've never seen quartz react to sonic vibrations in that manner. I wonder..." He hummed the same note Raven had and achieved the same result, light and warmth filling the crystal for as long as the note was held. "Curious." Bracing the journal with the forearm of his full hand, Atrus added a quick note about the crystal's reactive properties. "I'd like to test some other crystals, but I'm always loathe to disturb some process or balance we can't see."  
  
"I hadn't thought about that, but you're right. Hope I didn't upset something." Raven had to hand it to his other friend: there was definitely something to be said for the exacting care with which Atrus treated the environment around him. Especially in a place like this. "Still, my gut tells me that reaction will be important."  
  
"In situations such as this, the most infinitessimal details can be vital, yes. And given that we've encountered clues before that we would have missed if we had been too careful," said Atrus, referring to Raven's blunder on the staircase below the hall of mosaics, "I'm even more inclined to believe it."  
  
"Well, since we found a clue, let's figure out what to do with it." Raven glanced around, wondering where the next test might be located. "Maybe we should start by finding the door out of here."  
  
In the time Atrus had known Raven, the Amberite's problem-solving skills had grown substantially. While Raven still had much to learn, a hint of pride kindled in Atrus' heart at the thought that he might have been able to influence Raven in such a positive way. "That sounds like an excellent idea."  
  
True to form the next doorway stood directly opposite the portal they had used to reach this chamber, though it was blocked from sight by the forest of crystaline growths. Before the door stood a flat-topped white marble pedestal two feet in diameter. This particular door was locked, and Atrus reasoned that the key lay in the seven colored yet not-glowing crystal points, one for each color of the rainbow, atop the pedestal. A row of seven hexagonal holes and a round red button an inch across in the center were the pedestal top's only other features.  
  
"Okay, here we go. This is more like it." Raven plucked the red crystal from the pedestal and flipped it in the air. "Seven crystals, seven slots. I think we can figure out what comes next."  
  
"Ah, yes," said Atrus, "but we have to determine the proper sequence. We don't have time to apply brute force." He reached out and pressed the button with one finger.  
  
A sequence of seven notes resonated from the air, rising, then falling, then rising further and falling slightly at the end. Just to be certain Atrus pushed the button a second time. The same sequence played. "That would appear to be our next clue," he said.  
  
Raven's handsome face twisted a bit as he thought. Colors, notes and crystals. They had a crystal point that glowed bright yellow whenever someone hummed a particular note around it. They had seven crystal points on the pedestal: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They had a series of seven notes. "Seven notes, seven crystals. Odds are there's one crystal for each note. Now we have to figure out which is which. I've got no musical talent at all. I don't even know what note that was we hummed to make our crystal glow. But I do remember reading something about an analogy between frequencies of colored light and musical notes."  
  
"Of course," said Atrus with a snap of his fingers. "I do have some musical knowledge. The note we hummed was middle-C."  
  
"C... Yellow. Yes, that's it. C is yellow."  
  
"The fourth note was C, so the fourth crystal will be the yellow one." Atrus grasped the appropriate point and stuck it into the fourth slot from the left. He then pushed the central button once more. "A-sharp, C-sharp, D, C, B, F-sharp, E."  
  
"A-sharp is lowest," Raven thought aloud, "so it would be red. F-sharp would be violet." He slid those two crystals into the first and sixth slots. "C-sharp is right after C, so it would be green. D is blue, B is orange and E is indigo." These crystals he placed in their proper order. "Red, green, blue, yellow, orange, violet, indigo. That should do it."  
  
Both men glanced around. Nothing had changed. Raven tried the door; it was still locked. "Did we get something wrong?" he wondered.  
  
"I don't believe so. Let me check again." Atrus pushed the button once more. As the individual notes played, the corresponding crystal flashed brightly. After the seventh note, all seven crystals flared and the door drifted open an inch. "Ah. Serendipity is with us this time."  
  
"Hooray for luck," said Raven as he pulled the door open all the way. Beyond lay another spiraling staircase of red, white and black marble. "And hooray for predictability. Up we go." With a last lingering glance at the beautiful patterns of light in the chamber, the Amberite led the way up the next flight of steps.  
  
One full circle around the circumference of the tower later they reached another door, different from the others in the two riveted iron bands running across its surface. It opened without a sound into yet another great circular chamber. The purpose of the pendulum became apparent: it hung in the center of this room, ten feet from the ceiling. Some invisible light source shone directly on the brass weight, which scattered the bright rays across five polished brass globes hung from steel poles connected to circular tracks in the ceiling.  
  
"An orrery of sorts?" Atrus wondered. "This must be the next challenge."  
  
Without speaking Raven crossed the floor to the exit. As he expected, it was locked. Only then did he turn his eyes to examining the rest of the orrery room. The floor was well-polished marble mottled with white and tan. In the center a nine-foot-wide band of black marble made a circuit three times its thickness in diameter around the foot-wide hole for the pendulum. This band was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols like those on the archway in the rock face on the beach.  
  
A quarter of the way around the wall stood another control panel much like the one working the machinery for the staircases several levels down. There were no dials on this panel, however, only one lever in the "up" position and one wheel. Above the panel light reflected from the pendulum sun onto a large eye carved into the wall at the level of the planetary ecliptic.  
  
"Three guesses as to what that panel controls, and the first two don't count," Raven said as he moved away from the door. When he reached the panel he grasped the lever and pulled. It had three intermediary stops between the top and bottom positions. "Five stops, five planets."  
  
"Don't assume it will be so straightforward," Atrus cautioned. He took hold of the wheel and turned it slowly clockwise. The outermost planet began to move in a similar manner -- but so did the innermost. "Each stop will move any number of those planets. Let me get my journal and we'll test each one."  
  
The uppermost and third lever stops each moved one planet, respectively the innermost and the fourth. The second stop rotated the second and third planets, and the fourth stop made the second and fourth planets move. This puzzle would involve some tricky thinking. There was one thing missing, however. "What do we do with them now that we know how they move?" Raven demanded. Hands on his hips, he blew a sigh of frustration and looked around again. The eye stared down at him, unblinking. Light on the eye... "What if we eclipsed the eye?"  
  
"That should be relatively simple. Rotate the fourth planet between them," said Atrus. Raven pushed the lever to the middle stop and turned the wheel, sending the fourth planet whirling around the pendulum sun. He adjusted the position so that the planet cast a shadow onto the eye. Nothing changed. "Something else is required. Planetary alignments are said by many to hold great significance. According to some traditions they are a time of new opportunity, an opening of new ways. Since we need just that very thing, I believe we should try to align all the planets between the eye and the sun."  
  
The Amberite smirked. "Didn't know you were into astrology."  
  
"One learns a great deal of things one does not necessarily need to believe," Atrus said simply as he reached into his pack again, this time for a piece of scratch paper. "There will be a precise pattern to the movements of the lever and the wheel. Some of it, if the creator of this particular test was truly intelligent, will seem contrary to logic. This could take a bit." With that the D'ni sat cross-legged on the floor and began to write.  
  
Raven decided it would be better to let the bearded man deal with his thoughts on his own. He reached for his Trumps. This strange place blocked the Pattern, but would it prevent the cards from functioning as well? He knew he had some time to relax and ponder, so instead of immediately reaching for his mother's Trump he shuffled slowly through the entire deck, considering each one in turn. Atop the deck was Flora, the much-lauded beauty of the Amberite royalty. Raven's contact with this particular aunt had been spotty at best. She was one of the most devious players in the family game -- a woman who aspired to be the power behind the throne, rather than the one on it -- and he had no wish to be drawn into her schemes. Beneath Flora was Fiona, a firey redhead even more dangerous than her sister. She was a definite contender, her boundless intellect giving her a viciously keen edge.  
  
Next came rugged Gérard, the strongest man in the the entire family, quite possibly the most physically powerful man in all of Shadow, and a staunch ally -- or terrifying foe. Then Random, the impish King of Amber, the best man for the job simply because he concerned himself with being a good man more than with grabbing for power. Following Random was his older brother Corwin, father of Merlin and quite possibly the biggest pain in the neck of all time. Corwin had shaken the universe more than once. Now he had his own universe to shake. That particular Trump was one Raven knew he would never, ever use.  
  
Beyond Corwin was Llewella's card. Raven passed it over for Martin, Random's wild yet good-natured son, his spiked mohawk radiating off the card like a radioactive explosion. Then it was Merlin himself, the artist of the deck. It was an older card, drawn before Merlin had affected a beard. Raven liked his affable cousin, but was wary of Merlin's collection of powers and talents from all throughout Shadow and his rumored connection to the Courts of Chaos. Had Raven not kept himself isolated from the family he would probably have known a great deal more, but he didn't care to get that close.  
  
That brought him to the final card. A stooped-over dwarf, his wizened face split with a lunatic grin, Dworkin was not one to be trifled with. Truth be told, Raven was terrified of the man. This card Raven would also leave alone. He was quick to slide it back under the rest of the deck lest a psychic connection form completely by accident. Now it was time to test.  
  
Pulling out his mother's card once more, Raven gazed at it, reaching through the card toward Llewella. He stared at her face, imagining it beginning to move, to speak. He stared until his head began to ache, but the Trump wouldn't function. He dropped the card and rubbed his temples with a groan.  
  
"Something the matter?" Atrus asked without lifting his head from his study of the orrery's movement patterns.  
  
"Looks like whatever's blocking the Pattern in this place also shuts down Trumps. I'm beginning to think it would be a pretty safe bet to say the Logrus couldn't get in here either." But who could have tapped into something so mind-bogglingly powerful that it could defy the two forces that drove everything that was? How could the D'ni, if they were truly the ones who had created this place, have achieved such knowledge? The implications were staggering as well as horrifying.  
  
"I believe," said Atrus after a moment's silence, "that I have the correct pattern." The beared man stood and began to work the lever and wheel, shifting the planetary globes in their orbits. Raven watched them whirl around their sun and was reminded of the Golden Circle of Shadows that lay close to Amber. Many in that city atop Mount Kolvir would have said that all of Shadow revolved around that one place. The Courts of Chaos would say differently, that much was certain.  
  
Then, all the planets were in alignment. As the final motion came to a stop there came a loud click from the exit door. "Very nice," Raven said.  
  
Atrus took the compliment as he usually did, with a mix of defference and cold fact. "I used something vaguely related to the principles of this mechanism myself in the clock tower on Myst Island, and I've seen other devices and puzzles much like this one. Still, the larger number of possible combinations made it rather more difficult."  
  
Raven put away his Trumps and stood. "Time to go, then." The exit door had opened for them, leading to yet another curving stairway.  
  
Though this chamber was the same as the previous three in size and shape, it was, unlike the others, bisected by a crenelated stone wall twenty feet high. In the center of the wall was a form rather like a gateway, only there was no passage through the wall itself. A curious symbol, like a curved drop of black water, was painted halfway up the wall. Below that, easily within arm's reach, were six empty round depressions two inches in diameter, arranged as the points of a pentagon or star would be around one in the center. Underneath that a small trough was carved into the wall. Within this trough lay five balls: green, white, black, red and yellow.  
  
"Six holes, five balls. I wonder if this is some kind of jumping or sequence game," said Atrus.  
  
Raven reached in and grasped the white ball. It was as white as new-fallen snow when he held it up for a closer look, smooth and heavy. He gasped in sudden realization. "This ball is solid white jade," the Amberite breathed in amazement. "I think... yes, they're all jade. Someone spent a fortune." Forcing himself to ignore the rarity and beauty of the ball, he chose a depression in the wall at random, on the lower right, and slipped the ball into it. Nothing happened. Leaving it in place for the moment he then pulled out the black ball and placed it into the center.  
  
When his fingers broke contact with the dark jade sphere, a strange image appeared on the wall between the depressions and the odd black glyph. It seemed to be an ideologic character, drawn with precise brush strokes. Its meaning escaped both men, but the sound that reached their ears was plain: the babbling of a stream. "Water," Atrus reasoned.  
  
Raven pulled the ebony sphere out of the center and replaced it with the snowy white one. Another symbol appeared, accompanied by a noise reminiscent of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. Raven guessed, "Metal."  
  
"Try the red one next," said Atrus, his tone indicating that he had sensed a pattern already. When the crimson sphere was firmly within the wall a third glyph formed along with the sound of a blazing fire. "As I suspected, fire."  
  
The D'ni's train of logic was suddenly apparent to Raven. "Elements. Water, Metal, Fire... The other ones should be Wood and Earth." The green sphere brought forth the sound of wind rustling the leaves and branches of a tree. The yellow caused a resonating rumble that rattled their bones until Raven pried the ball loose. "Never let it be said that smuggling you books on Chinese history from Shadow Earth is a waste of time. I should've seen that the moment I looked at this puzzle." His blue eyes lifted to the curving black drop overhead. "And that's the Yin half of the Yin-Yang symbol, I'd bet my Trumps on it."  
  
The information Atrus had read on the philosophies of ancient China played through his mind like a moving picture. The Yin and Yang principles were supposed to drive the universe, creating everything that was between them. The active, masculine Yang principle also represented the creative drive, light and life. The passive, feminine Yin was sometimes used to represent death and destruction, the clearing out of the old to make room for the new. If this wall was marked with the Yin symbol... "Solving this puzzle will destroy the wall," he thought aloud.  
  
"Yeah, but... how do we solve it?" Raven tossed the yellow ball into the air a few times. "We've pretty much figured out that the center hole is used to identify which ball is which element, but what about the sequence?"  
  
"What logical progressions are there to these five elements?" asked Atrus. If they could identify patterns, they could put those patterns to use.  
  
"Hmm." Raven caught the Earth sphere and stared into the middle distance as he sorted through his memory. "Earth... Metal... Water... Okay, now I remember. There's a 'creative cycle' to these five, where each one 'spawns' the next. Earth creates Metal in the ores mined from it, Metal creates Water in the dew that collects on its surface, Water creates Wood by nourishing it, and Wood creates Fire by burning. Fire turns into ash, which brings us back to Earth again." He placed the yellow sphere in the top point, then placed the white Metal ball in the next depression clockwise, followed by black Water, green Wood and red Fire.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
"What gets me," Raven said as he glared at the stubborn wall, "is how the D'ni know so much about ancient China."  
  
"There have been links between D'ni and the humans of Earth before," Atrus reminded his Amberite friend. "Remember, D'ni itself lies in a vast cavern below the ground on an Earth very much like the one you frequent, miles under the feet of the human race. My grandmother, Ti'ana, was originally named Anna. She was human."  
  
"So it's not illogical to think the D'ni came into contact with people around the time of, say, Qin Shih Huangdi, then."  
  
Atrus shook his head. "Not illogical at all. Evidently this pattern is not the correct one. What about another?"  
  
"Well, if there's a creative, there's also... a destructive... I'm an idiot. The Yin symbol means we should arrange the balls in the destructive cycle." Raven pulled four of the five spheres out one at a time and handed them to Atrus, leaving the yellow ball of Earth at the top point. "Earth destroys Water by containing, diverting and absorbing it." The black ball followed, in the next point clockwise. "Then Water destroys Fire by quenching it." The red ball he put in the lower right point. "Fire melts Metal." The white sphere went into the bottom left point. "And that leaves Wood, which is destroyed by the cutting of Metal and destroys Earth by breaking it up." He placed the green ball into the final depression and stood back.  
  
A thin line of light pierced the thickest part of the ebon Yin glyph, then traced out to the right and left before trickling down among the stones to outline a rough door. When the light touched the floor, the portion of the wall thus described faded into translucence, then into invisibility.  
  
The wall was revealed to be only one stone thick. Beyond they could see the exit in the far wall. Between them and it were five stone pedestals, atop which sat five carved cinnabar-glazed figurines on five differently colored bases, one for each element. The pedestals were arranged in a cross atop a mosaic map of China, three from north to south, three from east to west. A thin ring of wood marked with eight pictures, four of them characters and the other four images matching four of the figurines, surrounded the mosaic. When Atrus picked up a carved tiger from the black base on the center pedestal, they noticed that the bases were not attached to the figurines. "This is probably a matching test," he said. "One figure for each element."  
  
In addition to the tiger held by Atrus, there was a dragon, a turtle, a peacock-like bird and a man with a long flowing beard dressed in luxurious robes. Raven scratched his head. "Okay, so we put one figure on each base. This shouldn't be terribly difficult. Any clue as to where to begin?"  
  
"I believe we should examine all the pieces we're working with," replied Atrus. "The directions seem to be important, as do the elements we just worked with at the wall. That makes me think that in addition to matching a figure to each element, we must put the figure and base on the proper pedestal." He knelt to examine the pictures on the wooden ring. To the south was a turtle, its shell and head protruding from water, and next to it a Chinese character. He reached out to run a finger over the scoring. "This should indicate..." The D'ni broke off as the wooden ring rotated slightly under his touch. "Ah, a twist."  
  
"So the ring moves," Raven observed. He glanced at each other other three pictures and noticed that all of the figures on them were oriented with their bottom edges facing the same way. "If we figure out which way to put the ring we'll have our answer. The man in the robes obviously goes in the center, since he's not on the ring. What element is missing?"  
  
Quick examination showed that the bird was wreathed in flame, the tiger's claws were accentuated with lines to show gleaming metal, and the dragon was wrapped around a tree. With the turtle in water, that left only earth. Raven placed the yellow base onto the center pedestal and set the figure of the robed man atop it. "Okay... now what?"  
  
"I seem to recall there was something peculiar about their cartography," said Atrus, "but I cannot remember exactly what it was." He stroked his beard and "Hmm"ed to himself softly.  
  
"You're right. But what was it?" Raven considered the wooden ring again. All the animals were oriented the same way, so that the turtle would be on bottom, at the south edge of the map. But the Chinese... "They oriented their maps upside down. They put south at the top!" He knelt and slid the ring around in its base until the turtle was at the north, on its back the way most maps were drawn. This put the tiger standing on its head in the west and the dragon doing likewise in the east, and the bird flying along contentedly upside-down in the south. Quickly he and Atrus arranged the figurines to match the pictures, the tiger atop the white base for metal in the west, the turtle atop black for water in the north, the dragon atop green for wood in the east and the bird atop the remaining red for fire in the south. With the final figure in place the exit door creaked open.  
  
One more spiraling staircase of gold-inlayed red, white and black marble took them around and up to the next level. Raven paused at the door. "If we suppose that the mosaic room was the base of the tower, how far up would you say we are?"  
  
Atrus ran a quick calculation through his mind. "Each level has been roughly sixty feet high. We should assume at least ten feet between chambers, though I would guess it to be closer to twenty. Placing the floor of the mosaic hall at ground level, that means that the floor of this level is three hundred twenty feet above the top of the cliff."  
  
"And the tower was about five hundred feet high. So the level above this would be the last one at four hundred feet, and above that would be the roof at about four-eighty. Assuming this chamber and the one above are both the size of the other ones we've encountered."  
  
That was a lot of guessing, but it seemed to be the most logical conclusion. Atrus nodded. "We should be coming close to the end of our quest."  
  
"Here's hoping the quest-maker didn't decide to crank up the difficulty a few notches," Raven quipped as he pushed open the iron-banded wooden door.  
  
Neither of them was prepared for the living grove that filled the chamber beyond. Sunlight shone down from a brilliant glowing dome twenty feet across in the center of the ceiling, washing over the green treetops and dappling to the grassy floor beneath. Raven recognized willow, maple, oak, ash, birch and beech as well as the native Misaran tree which yielded the dark wood from which the people built so much of their architecture and furnishings. Atrus immediately withdrew his journal from his pack and walked over to sit beneath the sheltering branches of a red maple. As before Raven left him to his thoughts and wandered away.  
  
Several of the trees bore curious markings, shapes of animals and objects, one to a tree. More curious than that, however, was the incongruous lever switch Raven discovered in the center of the floor directly beneath the false sun, nothing more than a wood-handled brass lever between two small semicircular brass plates bolted to a small concrete block. After a split-second's halfhearted debate with his conscience, Raven grasped the switch and pulled it to the other side.  
  
Night fell in an unnatural instant. The ceiling overhead sparkled with a wild dash of twinkling stars. As Raven gazed up at the unfamiliar sky he heard Atrus' calm, patient voice. "I take it you found something."  
  
"Did I ever!" the Amberite exclaimed. "Hold on a second." He grasped the switch and grinned -- he'd always wanted to do this. "Let there be light!" He threw the switch and the star-jeweled night sky vanished behind the rays of the false sun again. The sudden explosion of light dazzled his eyes. His moment of apotheosis over and his vision clearing, Raven made his way back to Atrus. "Some of the trees are marked, like the pillars in your garden. And I'll just bet that the star patterns that appeared when I threw the switch have something to do with them, like the ones in your planetarium on Myst Island."  
  
"I was inspired to that particular puzzle by a book I read while with my father in D'ni, years ago," said Atrus. "It is not so far-fetched to believe someone else read the same book. Would you agree?"  
  
Raven laughed brightly. "Bless the heart of whoever did it, because it made this puzzle a lot easier to figure out. Come on, let's go copy some constellations." He led Atrus back to the switch and summoned night once more.  
  
"Twelve constellations," the D'ni counted. "One for each month of the year." Once his eyes adjusted the starlight was quite sufficient for him to sketch the patterns into his journal. "Now we'll want to find these patterns among the trees. Flip the switch again. Oh, and cover your eyes."  
  
"Three steps ahead of you," said Raven, his arm already over his eyes. He pushed the switch back to daylight, then slowly removed his arm from his face. "Okay. Let's go picture hunting."  
  
The first eight symbols were easy to find, though they were scattered throughout the grove. Each glyph pulsed with an emerald green light when one of them touched it. The two men passed by the ninth symbol twice before realizing it had been placed upside-down on its tree near the locked exit; after that they were more methodical.  
  
The tenth glyph was reversed, and they initially passed it by, returning only when they didn't find it facing the same way as the constellation. The eleventh was split into two parts, each on one of two trees close by each other but positioned so as for one to be invisible to someone facing the other. They could not, however, find the twelfth, a crescent moon. An hour passed as they checked every symbol in the grove. Raven muttered a curse under his breath and kicked the concrete block holding the lever when they returned to their starting point.  
  
Atrus sat and consulted his journal again. So far they had found eleven symbols on twelve trees. The final would make twelve symbols on thirteen trees -- twelve solar months, thirteen lunar months. There were no crescent moon symbols anywhere on the trees in the grove. He looked up as Raven kicked the lever's base again, then paused, his mouth hanging open.  
  
There was a crescent moon on the block itself. "Very astute," said the D'ni. "You found it."  
  
Raven looked down at the spot his foot had kicked and grimmaced. Leave it to Atrus to put a good face on his frustration. "Thanks." He reached down and touched the symbol. As the emerald fire lit up the familiar sound of a door unlocking reached their ears. "Much as I'd love to stay here a while, I want to get this over with. You ready?"  
  
"Quite," replied Atrus. He stood and shouldered his pack once again. The two men made their way through the grove to the now-opened exit and the expected marble staircase beyond.  
  
There was no door at the top of the stairs. The massive chamber was dark except for a single beam of light shining from the ceiling to illuminate a large white marble statue of a beautiful woman with her long flowing hair tied into a loose tail by ribbons. In one upraised hand she held a white orb, a pearl nine inches in diameter. Periodically a shimmer of iridescence would shiver across the face of the sphere. Power emmanated from it in invisible, rolling waves. The Orb of Geda was theirs.  
  
Raven made no motion to claim the Orb, however, for the face of the woman holding it had stunned him into paralysis.  
  
"Raven?" asked Atrus. "What's the matter?"  
  
The Amberite could only stammer. "That's... that's..." 


	5. Seeker's Journey -- Part Four

"Seeker's Journey"  
Part Four  
by Corvus  
  
Words completely failed Raven as he stared at the woman immortalized in marble in the center of the vast chamber. There could be no mistaking her identity, not with a face that uniquely beautiful. Far too many things had startled the Amberite already on this journey, but this was without doubt the worst shock of all.  
  
"What is it, Raven? Do you know who she is?" asked the D'ni standing beside him. Atrus wore a look of concern as he observed his friend's astonishment.  
  
"I... I ought to," Raven finally forced past his lips. "She gave birth to me. That's my mother, Llewella."  
  
Yes, there was definitely a strong resemblance between the features of the man standing next to him and the stone woman above, Atrus concluded. Raven had spoken of his mother in the past, but the D'ni had never seen the storied princess of Amber until now. There was quiet, regal strength in those carved eyes, strength that reminded Atrus of Catherine. Was this the answer to the riddle of the tower? Did this woman whose image stood frozen in time before them build this place?  
  
"I think," said the woman's son, "that she and I are going to have a lot to talk about the next time I see her." Raven reached out to touch the marble figure, to seek purchase so that he could climb and retrieve the Orb of Geda from the lifeless fingers overhead, but he found the statue to be as slick as the cliff rocks. "I don't suppose you brought a rope in that bag of yours?"  
  
Atrus shook his head. He had several useful items in his pack, but a rope was not one of them. "This must be the final challenge."  
  
He couldn't climb it, and the Orb was out of reach even if Atrus stood on his shoulders. "Okay, Mom," said Raven to the unchanging visage, "what's up your sleeve now?" He walked a slow counterclockwise circle around the ghostly-white statue, searching both figure and floor for marks, buttons, anything that might provide a clue. To focus his own thoughts Atrus sketched the statue itself and a close-up of the Orb, making a special note of the shimmer that periodically crossed the sphere's surface. Raven completed his circuit without any luck. "Maybe there's something hidden elsewhere in this chamber," he said.  
  
"That is the next logical step, yes." Atrus set down his journal and pulled out the candles and lighter. He lit both and passed one to the Amberite. "I suggest we begin with the wall."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Raven walked to the entrance and began to sweep clockwise, while Atrus moved to the wall opposite and matched his rotation along the outside edge of the chamber. Each man lifted his candle above his head, straining to see some hidden clue that would help them solve this last puzzle.  
  
At the edge of the pool of light from his flame Atrus caught sight of a grid of black and silver tiles. "Raven, I've found something," he called across the chamber. Atrus stepped closer to his discovery and noticed that the grid was roughly octagonal in shape, the diagonals formed from the up-and-across steps of block corners. It was also not the only feature of the wall.  
  
A similar shape had been hewn out of the wall itself to the right of the grid. Beneath the recessed octagon stood a marble pedestal with a large basin. In this basin were puzzle pieces of various shapes and sizes, all resembling strings of blocks placed together. Two faces of each piece were painted in black and silver. These, the D'ni reasoned, were to be placed into the octagon to form a picture.  
  
To the right of that puzzle was a third. More black and silver blocks rested within yet another octagon. With this one, however, one piece was missing. A moment's investigation revealed that the blocks slid, somehow capable of remaining in place even when the empty space was directly beneath them. This was probably a slide puzzle.  
  
"What's all this?" Raven inquired as he reached his friend.  
  
"Three puzzles," explained Atrus, "sharing a common theme of sorts. Each is arranged in an octagon of similar size, and each involves pieces of black and silver design. This is a sliding block puzzle, and the one in the center is like a jigsaw puzzle, just a bit more difficult. I'm not certain what the one on the left is."  
  
Raven leaned in close to the left-hand octagon and ran his gaze over it. At this distance he could see the seams between each block. Perhaps if he removed one...  
  
As the Amberite's fingertips brushed a block, the pattern of black and silver on it slithered into a new form. The blocks above, below and to either side likewise changed. "Oops."  
  
The mistake provided Atrus with a clue to the puzzle's nature, however. "I understand, I believe. You must change the patterns on the blocks in such a manner as to form a picture."  
  
"But what picture?" asked Raven. "We've got three puzzles in front of us and no idea how to... Wait a minute, what's this?" Above the puzzle, at the edge of the light from his candle, was a design of eight symbols, each a circle of black, silver or both. "Black crescents on silver, silver crescents on black, half of each, whole of each... I know what this is. It's the phases of the moon."  
  
"And above the center, and the one on the right as well," Atrus said as he took note of the similar patterns. "Our solutions."  
  
"I'll take the design-flipping. You tackle the slide puzzle. Then we can turn on the jigsaw puzzle." The Amberite turned his full attention to the wall, his lips set in a grim line of fierce concentration. He began to touch blocks, feeling out the patterns that lay on them.  
  
Atrus finished his task well before Raven. The slide puzzle was without doubt the most simple of the three. While his companion continued his work with the design-flipping, the D'ni added the puzzles to his journal.  
  
A few minutes later Raven stepped back from his task and nodded in satisfaction. "Got it. You ready to play with blocks?"  
  
"Of course," replied Atrus. They sorted through the piece basin and examined their options. Each piece could be placed eight ways, four different alignments of each side. Were the pieces all of similar shape or size their task would have been less arduous. But, Raven thought to himself, that would be far too easy.  
  
After several minutes of debate over the merits of various starting pieces, Atrus chose one and touched it to the niche in the wall. The piece attached itself with a miffled click. The D'ni's satisfaction was short-lived; a hidden panel in the rock above the puzzle slid aside and an hourglass extended on a brass rod. The rod rotated and the sand began to trickle down into the other chamber of the glass. "Now this is overdoing it, Mom," Raven complained with a look back at the marble statue of his mother. Then he began plucking pieces out of the basin and attaching them to the wall in earnest.  
  
Ten minutes passed. A segment of the upper half took shape, but several other pieces refused to cooperate. Twenty minutes. Atrus was sweating profusely; if the glass ran out, there was no telling what might happen to them. The trap in the western stairs had been quite lethal. Half an hour. Raven ripped the completed portion of the puzzle out of the wall in disgust.  
  
Forty minutes. Careful but urgent reexamination of the pieces showed the men that the portion they had completed before was not only in the wrong place, but also reversed. Fifty minutes. Building on that success they quickly filled in most of the remaining empty space. Fifty-five minutes. Only a few pieces remained. They would make it with time to spare.  
  
Rather, they would have had the sand of the hourglass not begun flowing much more quickly.  
  
Atrus was forced to admit, later on, that at that point he could think of no better solution than the one Raven took, randomly shoving pieces into the gap in the puzzle. Serendipity was with them once more; the Amberite's mad scramble put the final piece in place mere seconds before the sands ran out. The hourglass turned over once more and retreated into the wall.  
  
Atrus mopped his forehead and smiled. Raven tried to ignore the dryness of his mouth and offered a weak grin in return. "That was way too close. Let's not do that again, huh?" he quipped.  
  
A sudden dazzling rainbow shimmered across the wall. It came again, spinning from ceiling to floor, then reappeared once more at an oblique angle. Atrus turned and started. The light was being thrown off by the Orb itself as it lifted into the air above the statue and flared to brilliant life.  
  
The sphere hovered in midair for a long moment, painting the chamber in streaks of radiance. Then it floated toward the men, guided by an unseen hand, its luminescence fading slightly. "We did it," said Raven. "Let's take it and get out of here." The Amberite reached out his hands to take the sphere, feeling a warmth flow up from his palms. The Orb tingled to the touch like electricity contained within a spherical shape.  
  
Reality tilted in several impossible directions at once, then resettled. Instead of the shadows of the chamber, they were surrounded by the jewel-strewn velvet of night. Waves lapped gently at the shore where they stood at the base of the cliff. Light from the Orb twinkled in the sand and danced in the surf. A raft waited to carry them to the patiently-waiting white winged boat.  
  
As the boat turned south and began gliding back toward the island, Raven realized that he had no idea what time it was. Atrus dozed on the foredeck, leaning on his pack. It seemed like as good an idea as any. Sliding down against the deckhouse, he let himself drift off, the Orb cradled in his lap.  
  
Atrus woke first, stirred by the change in the boat's motion as it slowed near the island. The veils of mist shimmered in the light of dawn. "We're back," he said. The Amberite stirred instantly and clambered to his feet, searching for a sign of Sila. No one waited on the beach, but a raft did drift out to meet them. Carrying the Orb and pack they stepped onto the lashed logs and approached the shore. "All things considered I would say we acquitted ourselves rather well."  
  
Raven patted the Orb and grinned. "That we did, my friend. Once we've handed this over to the Council, I'm going to have a little chat with my mother about that statue."  
  
"I am probably almost as curious as you," said the D'ni. He had thought that his friendship with Raven was the only contact their two cultures had made; surely such a momentous meeting would have been recorded. But the presence of the statue of Llewella within a complex bearing marks of the D'ni made it almost certain that there had been prior exchanges between D'ni and Amber. Had the records of that meeting been destroyed, or had there been no record made? Without knowing more about Amber and the princess Llewella he could not do more than ask questions. Hopefully Raven would be able to get some answers. This was more than a curiosity; this held historical import for the D'ni as a people.  
  
Birds serenaded their triumphant return to the village, calling out their joy through the mists. As the two men emerged from the forest they were spotted by a gleefully shouting Misaran girl, and soon they were surrounded by the entire population of the hamlet, pressing together to get a look at the legendary Orb of Geda. Dumo's voice roce above the din of the throng, bringing them to silence. The crowd parted for the Councilman's approach. "The Seeker returns with the Orb, Council Dumo," intoned Atrus.  
  
"The people welcome the Seeker," Dumo replied. "This is the Orb of Geda?"  
  
"It is." Raven held it up over his head. A shimmer lit the fog momentarily. "Pretty, isn't it," he said to the gasping Misarans. Sila was still nowhere to be seen.  
  
Dumo held his hand out for the Orb, and the Amberite gladly transferred his burden to the councilman. Now that the sphere was in the Council's hands, Raven could get down to questioning his mother. "I guess that's pretty much it. Um... thank you for your hospitality. I'm glad I could help. I need to be going now."  
  
The councilman was taken aback. "Surely you will stay and attend the ceremony?"  
  
The Amberite's icy eyes sought Atrus'. The D'ni's expression told him Atrus thought it would be a good thing if he were to wait. Raven gave it a moment's thought, then decided that he could question his mother by Trump. "Of course."  
  
"Good, good, Sila will be pleased. Come, you must be tired after your journey. Rest, and then we will talk." Dumo handed the Orb to Jeti with instructions to place the sphere in the tavern hall, then led the Seekers back to his dwelling. The were greeted with warm enthusiasm by Mefe, then bundled off to bed. Neither man argued, and both were asleep within minutes of lying down after a good wash.  
  
Atrus awoke shortly after noon. He was tempted to lie idle; surely he had earned that much. But his inner drive forced him out of the bed and into his clothing. Carrying his journal so that he could show his hosts what he had seen, he left the room. Mefe and Dumo, him without his headdress for the time being, sat quietly on the porch of their home, sipping tea. "Did you sleep well, Atrus?" asked the woman. Dumo indicated an empty chair for Atrus to occupy  
  
The D'ni nodded as he sat in the proffered chair. "I slept very well knowing we succeeded. With the Orb back in your possession, you can now perform the millennial ritual. That's something I most certainly wouldn't want to miss."  
  
"It is good that Raven has taken a liking to Sila," Mefe said over her carved wooden mug. "The time has come for Sila to find a husband. As was written in the holy texts, her time has come just as the Seeker appeared. Marrying the Seeker would bring her great honor, as well as landing her a fine catch."  
  
The mental image of his Amberite friend's reaction to learning Sila's purpose made Atrus cough to master a laugh. Raven was definitely not the marrying type. Though chronologically much older than Atrus, the Amberite was still a young man and had a young man's passions. Settling down in an Age, or Shadow as Raven would say, was not one of those passions. "He will be... quite surprised," Atrus said to fill the silence.  
  
"She danced the Dance of Life for him," said Dumo sagely. "If he has any sense, and I believe he does, he will see the honor she has shown him. I have faith that he will do the right thing."  
  
The right thing according to whom was the only question. Atrus would never say that Raven was a bad man by any stretch, but his Amberite view of the universe sometimes made him do things that others didn't agree with, or did things for reasons even Atrus couldn't fathom. Despite the ever-growing time he had known the Amberite man, Raven still managed to surprise and astound Atrus quite regularly.  
  
That unpredictability would make this upcoming situation quite interesting indeed, Atrus thought.  
  
In the companionable silence that followed Dumo's proclamation the D'ni found himself once again comparing Llewella to Catherine. What Raven had said about his mother made them sound rather similar. If Sirrus and Achenar had not... Would they have turned out like Raven? The line of thinking was pointless, but Atrus pondered it anyway. He had time to be idle, to think useless thoughts, to brood if he wished. He so rarely let himself brood. He had too much too do, too many depending on him to be strong and stalwart. Atrus enjoyed being someone on whom others could depend, but every so very often there came a time when he began to feel spread thin. It was in those moments when his friendship with Raven had proven most valuable. Something about the Amberite revitalized Atrus' spirit and zeal for life, love and knowledge. Now they had one more successful mutual quest to remember. How many more would there be?  
  
That thought brought a beaming smile to the D'ni explorer's fatherly face.  
  
"Something pleases you?" Mefe asked him, catching his infectious grin.  
  
"I was just thinking about my wife, and how much I love her. I'd like to bring her here, to Misara."  
  
"We would be honored to meet the wife of the Seeker," Domu said, and despite the formality Atrus could feel the sincerity in the councilman's words. "She has a place with us as surely as you."  
  
Inside, Raven awoke from another dream of Sila and glared at the ceiling as if it were to blame for ending the lovely vision. After verbally venting his frustration he rolled out of the bed and stepped across Shadow for fresh clothing, dressed and returned. His first thought was to look for Sila, but when he caught sight of his Trumps he knew there were more important matters that needed his attention. Raven quickly pulled out his mother's card and focused on the image.  
  
In a very short time -- as if she had been expecting the call, a part of his mind whispered -- the image began to move. "You needn't shout so loudly, Raven," Llewella said teasingly.  
  
"I'm sorry, this is... important. You know something you haven't told me."  
  
"I know many things I haven't told you, my son, and many more I will never tell you. Just as I know you know things you will never tell me. What is it that you suspect I know?"  
  
For all her pretension to neutrality, Raven thought darkly, she was still a princess of Amber in her blood. "My little jaunt with Atrus has brought me to a Shadow by the name of Misara." His mother's face remained completely passive. "We helped out the local people by retrieving an artifact called the Orb of Geda." Still no reaction. "This Orb was held in a massive tower on top of a cliff. The builder of the tower had knowledge of D'ni culture." Llewella blinked naturally, nothing more. "The builder also knew some of the culture of Earth's ancient China." The green-haired princess still didn't budge. "And the Orb was held by a statue. A statue of you, Mother."  
  
This time Llewella did flinch. "I had forgotten I disposed of that abominable thing in that tower. Ah, well. You were bound to find this out anyway, what with all your galavanting through Shadow with that D'ni friend of yours.  
  
"Many years before you were born, I too had contact with the D'ni. Once I learned of their ability to create those Trump-like Books of theirs I befriended one of the members of the Writer's Guild and was able to convince him to teach me -- in secret, of course. That Shadow you're in, that Age as the D'ni would call it, Misara, was the result of my experiment. I Wrote the Book of Misara and found that I had no taste for world building.  
  
"I kept the Book with me for a long time, but never bothered to check on the results of my work until one particular day when the book fell off a shelf and landed before me on a desk. I found that somewhere, I had made a tiny miscalculation; not even a mistake, really, I had just used a less appropriate term than I could have. But over the intervening years the... weak spot... slowly compounded into a fault. By now I'm certain you've heard of the great sickness." Raven nodded silently, and his mother continued. "Unlike some people we both know -- I shan't name names -- I take responsibility for my actions. I had to fix the flaw in Misara. After some thinking and research I was able to create a fix that didn't involve altering the Book itself, and I came up with a strategy that would leave me where I have always prefered to be: out of the limelight.  
  
"I was able to plant a dream into the mind of the sick chief, Geda, and begin my plan. The poor sick man wasn't actually dead when he reached the top of that cliff, which he did mostly with my assistance as it was. But he was very ill, and in a primitive culture like that he was as good as dead. I healed him and left him the Orb that I had constructed to fix the flaw. Then I observed. I was quite surprised when Geda, of his own volition, had the Orb put into hiding and convinced his people to simply trust in its existance. Still, I couldn't leave such an object lying around loose after it had served its purpose, and I had no idea when I might need it again. So I created that tower and put the Orb into it. All that remained was to give the Misarans a bit of a nudge so that they would look for it every so often, to perform routine maintenance on the Shadow without my direct intervention, and that I solved with the ritual."  
  
Llewella fell silent. Raven let her words tumble about in his mind, then asked, "How did you create the Orb?"  
  
"That is one of the things I cannot tell you, as well as the secret of the tower's isolation from the Pattern and the Trumps, as I'm certain you noticed. I will tell you this -- the tower also denies the Logrus, sorcery and many other types of power besides. But this nullification cannot be extended beyond that one location and it has no other function. Were it not for that restriction I would never have made use of the power. Such a terrible thing would turn all of Shadow upside down."  
  
He agreed with his mother completely on that. The ability to nullify the two primal forces of existance and any number of lesser powers... He suppressed a shudder. "And the puzzles involving ancient Chinese culture?"  
  
"I have been to Earth. I thought the philosophies and dress of that particular culture were quite beautiful, so I worked a bit of it into the tower."  
  
Well, there it was, everything he wanted to know -- almost -- given directly to him. "Thanks for being honest with me."  
  
Llewella gave him a warm smile. "Because you are my son, you do have a few special priviliges."  
  
"I'll be home soon," Raven promised.  
  
"I await your arrival," replied Llewella. In Rebma, the reflection of Amber deep under the waves, the green-haired princess broke the psychic contact and set her son's card down on the mahogany desk in front of her. She probably would be waiting longer than her son anticipated, because there was one thing she had not told him. After all, he hadn't asked. The control she had put into place to keep tabs on the Seeker after the completion of his quest was most likely about to come into play...  
  
In Misara, Raven put his mother's Trump back into the case with the rest of the pack and stretched. It was time to find Sila.  
  
Atrus, Dumo and Mefe awaited him on the porch. The Misarans shared a secret smile Raven couldn't dechiper; he guessed that they knew what his intentions were now that he was awake. "Did you sleep well, Raven?" asked Atrus.  
  
"Wonderfully. I'll have to get a new bed like that one, once I return to Rebma. Has anyone seen Sila?"  
  
"I believe she is in her home," Dumo told him. The councilman lifted a hand and pointed at a house across the common ground. "There. You should visit her."  
  
"I think I'll do just that. If I may take my leave," said Raven. He gave them all his most elegant courtly bow and made his way down the steps and across the common ground toward Sila's house.  
  
"Why, I believe he has no idea what's happening," Mefe said with feigned shock.  
  
Her husband sipped his tea and said nothing.  
  
Catherine will find this all terribly, terribly amusing, thought Atrus. He lifted his journal and began to write.  
  
  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
  
Some of the readers of this story might not be aware of its nature as a crossover. The prime elements of this tale are Roger Zelazny's "Chronicles of Amber" and Rand and Robyn Miller's "Myst" universe.  
  
Those aren't the only elements, however. The Labyrinth is drawn from one of my favorite puzzle adventures of all time, "The Labyrinth of Time", created by Terra Nova and released by Electronic Arts in 1993, almost at the same time as Myst. Some of the inspiration for the "Chinese floor" of the tower was drawn from "Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom", another of my favotire puzzle adventures. Most importantly, the outline and title for this story were drawn from the track listing of Andreas Vollenweider's CD "White Winds (Seeker's Journey)".  
  
Special thanks go out to: all my friends on #Fanfics, currently on SorceryNet (server: irc.sorcery.net); Ti'ana Katarina, a fellow contributer to the Myst/Riven section of fanfiction.net, whose fanfiction inspired me to begin this story and whose reviews made me blush; and Dianna Silver, without whose unflagging support and encouragement I would never have been able to keep this as the epic five-night project or wonder it has been rather than a year-long chore.  
  
Legal stuff: Myst, Atrus and the D'ni belong to Cyan. All Amberites mentioned except Raven belong to Roger Zelazny. The Labyrinth and the fictional depictions of Minos and Daedalus (not the legendary/historical figures) belong to Terra Nova / EA and were adapted by me without their permission. This is a work of fanfiction and draws no profit. Raven and Misara are my own creations.  
  
Begun: 1/11/01, late evening  
Finished: 1/16/01, early morning 


End file.
